


Reflash

by leviathans_moon



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-12
Updated: 2012-08-12
Packaged: 2017-11-11 23:39:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 37,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/484177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leviathans_moon/pseuds/leviathans_moon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing with putting out fires in schools was: they often led to biscuits and squiggly paintings of happy firemen. The fire in Albion primary school, however, leads Merlin to Arthur and his daughter Lynn; to more biscuits, but also pancakes; to fun and butterflies; and to a whole new world of letting someone in; ready or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> see Masterpost

**Title:** **Reflash**

 **Author:** [](http://leviathans-moon.livejournal.com/profile)[**leviathans_moon**](http://leviathans-moon.livejournal.com/)

**Artist:** [ ](http://itzcoatl.livejournal.com/profile) [ **itzcoatl** ](http://itzcoatl.livejournal.com/)

**Pairings/characters:** Arthur/Merlin, mentions of Arthur/Mithian, Gwaine/Elena and Gwen/Lancelot

 **Rating:** NC-17

 **Word Count:** 37k

 **Warnings:** character death (not Merlin or Arthur); lots of swearing; mentions of fire incidents

 **Summary:** The thing with putting out fires in schools was: they often led to biscuits and squiggly paintings of happy firemen. The fire in Albion primary school, however, leads Merlin to Arthur and his daughter Lynn; to more biscuits, but also pancakes; to fun and butterflies; and to a whole new world of letting someone in; ready or not.

Careful, don’t burn your fingers!

 **Author's Notes:** This fic came to me because I read a very awesome firefighters fic in another fandom. Then, the lovely helped me with plotting and kindly pointed out fire trucks wherever we went (of course we saw like five or six that day, typical) to get me excited about writing this. It worked. So, first of all a big thank you to her, for making me do this and for bouncing ideas around with me. Another big thank you to my cheerleader, who kept me motivated with lots of Colin pics and pics of pouting pandas (lovely alliteration). She helped me a lot during the writing process. Another huge thank you to my lovely artist, . I was ecstatic when I found out you were doing art for this fic. I loved working with you and I love your pictures and everybody go to the arts page and comment on her art. Thank you to my beta, who again did brilliant work. Any mistakes left are completely my own. Thanks also goes out to my RL friends who’ve helped out a lot and suffered through my whinging. Same goes for all the lovely people in the paperlegends chat. It’s just been so much fun. Hugs to you all. Thanks to my flist as a whole for supporting me. Finally, a big thank you to for organizing this and being so helpful all the time. You’re doing a brilliant job. Thank you. 

 

 **Artist's notes:** see art post 

**Story link:** [Masterpost on LJ](http://leviathans-moon.livejournal.com/162026.html)  
[On AO3]()

**Art link:** [on LJ](http://switchsword.livejournal.com/2112.html#cutid1)

**Disclaimer:** Merlin belongs to the BBC and Shine. This is just a fan playing around. No profit is being made from this.

 

 

 

 

 

Prologue

They were leaning against the pump, their helmets lying on the seats and their fire jackets open. Merlin’s LFB-shirt clung to him with sweat.

“I don’t get it. We’re doing something wrong.” It was very frustrating.

They were all watching a tall and admittedly good-looking firefighter flirting with one of the rescued women. She seemed to be very receptive to his advances; as indeed were all the women the guy had ever talked to at a scene. He was famous throughout the entire area, if not all of London, for taking women home straight from the job.

“I mean I’m the one who actually saved her. I brought her out of the building. Why is she talking to him? Why am I not the one asking her out?”

“You’re gay, Ems,” stated Morgana. “But apart from that, yes, why aren’t you the one asking her out?”

Gwaine laughed at them all as he threw his helmets on top of theirs. “Guys, I met Elena in a supermarket, not at work. Seriously, you need to expand a bit.”

Merlin pouted. “My dad met my mum because he saved her from a fire. It’s not too much to ask to have it that easy as well, in my opinion. Plus it’s romantic.”

“But then you can’t take Mr ‘I was February in the firefighters calendar 2012’ as an example,” replied Gwaine. “I doubt he’s looking for true love.”

“Who says Merlin is?” said Morgana teasingly.

“Who says I’m not?” He stuck his tongue out to her.

“Interesting.”

Merlin rolled his eyes. “Well, no true love today, let’s get out of here. Owain, come on!”

As they all climbed on to the pump, Gwaine clapped him on the shoulders. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get a work-related fuck at some point. You’re not that bad-looking.”

“Thank you, Gwaine. Coming from you, that means a lot.” Merlin punched him in the arm, laughing.

“You’re welcome.”

Merlin threw one last look at Calendar man and laughed at himself for envying him.

“You can do so much better than that, Ems,” whispered Morgana and as he often did Merlin simply accepted her opinion as the truth and fist-bumped her as he settled into his seat.

 

  
**~oOo~**   


 

Arthur tripped in his haste and nearly fell into the classroom. He looked around. All clear, windows closed. He breathed out and turned around. The alarm was ringing in his ears, louder than it had ever done so during the fake fire alarm practices. He ran into the next room, all was clear and the windows closed. All the teachers seemed to have been able to follow the guidelines. There was one more room for him to check before the main entrance came up on his right and then he too would have to leave the building. Again, everything was as it should be. He tried to calm down, taking deep breaths, before turning and walking out into the courtyard where at the far end all students and teachers had assembled.

As soon as he stepped outside, he heard the sirens of the fire trucks in the distance. _About bloody time._

Percy split away from the large quivering group and walked towards Arthur, clipboard in hand.

“All accounted for, sir. Only little Tommy from 2b has a small wound on his knee, no other injuries as far as we can tell,” said Percy, looking at Arthur tentatively.

Arthur nodded shakily, looking back at his school. There was smoke slowly rising from the back of the building. Thankfully, the fire had broken out there, with only the gym possibly holding pupils. The rest of the classrooms were in the front of the building.

 _Lucky,_ thought Arthur.

A fire engine came flying around the corner with its sirens blaring, though they were turned off as soon as the vehicle screeched to a halt. Immediately, six men jumped off the truck. Five began to work on the engine, unravelling the hose or preparing the hydrant that was just outside the school grounds. A second truck parked right beside the first one, followed by two ambulances. Arthur looked over to the children. After the initial shock, most of them were now excitedly pointing towards the red trucks. Arthur sighed heavily, closing his eyes for a moment. He turned to see a man walking towards him and Percy in long strides. The firefighter pushed his visor up, revealing some of the most remarkable cheekbones Arthur had ever seen. A few strands of black hair peeked out from under the helmet, tickling the pale skin. Arthur nearly forgot his frustration and anger.

“Is there a back entrance as well and are there people still in there?” asked the firefighter. Percy’s eyes quickly darted to Arthur who seemed to be somewhere between anger, incredulity and surprise. Percy reacted quickly.

“There’s a back entrance directly leading into the gym. The fire is just off it. All pupils and staff are outside.”

The firefighter nodded. He turned and yelled: “Will, Lance, Julius, Edwin, in. Morgana, Gwaine, Helen, out, B-C.”

“Oi, 52. I’ll send mine in from B-side,” yelled a firefighter from a third truck, that Arthur hadn’t noticed arriving.

“Roger. Charge the hose, Owain.”

Will and Lance had already disappeared into the building carrying the still empty hose behind them. The hose filled quickly after the order. They were followed by two firefighters from the other team, carrying fire extinguishers, while two firefighters, probably Morgana and Gwaine ran around the outside of the building to the back. 52, as he now was in Arthur’s head, pressed a button on his jacket and the static sound of an open line disrupted the chatter of the children.

“Alpha-Echo, 52 here, two pumps responded, 52 and 56, sector G south-west, civilians OD, all companies working, medics on scene, sufficient support.”

_“Roger, 52. Waiting for further instructions.”_

52 released the button, looked back towards the few men who’d remained behind at the trucks and receiving a thumbs up he raced past Arthur and Percy.

For a while, they didn’t see or hear much. The children were starting to get restless. Arthur cast a look over the crowd, making sure everything was all right. The paramedics tried to sort through the children, taking any injured ones to the side. So far they still only had little Tommy who had a bloody knee, probably from tripping over his own feet during break time as he so often did. Nevertheless , Arthur kept checking and rechecking, looking here and there. At some point, Percy placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him fidgeting. Arthur sighed and then looked thankfully at Percy. He knew he was making some of the children nervous and had to try to compose himself. He set his suit right, looking up towards where the smoke had risen from a few minutes earlier. It was barely discernible now.

“So, we’re going to need a new gym,” said Percy, sounding as if this was a dinner party he was making small talk at.

“We’ll have to see how bad the damage is,” replied Arthur, feeling the switch to professional happening. “We can ask the high school whether we could arrange a schedule for their gym. Take the kids across. And then try to squeeze some money out of the council. Fun times.” He rubbed his face at the tiring thought of hundreds of forms and applications and explanations. Sometimes he hated being the headmaster.

“They’ve got the insurance.”

Arthur nodded. “But that doesn’t stop them from cutting our funds and finding it a brilliant idea to send primary school kids across a busy street to a different school for their gym classes. By the end of this, we’ll have no gym and the council will be absolutely fine with it.”

“Until a child gets run over by a car, of course,” said Gwen from behind him, arms crossed.

“Of course,” agreed Arthur grimly.

“Looks like they’ve put it out.” She nodded in the general direction of where the fire was. The sky was now clear of dark, stinking clouds. “We’ve called about a third of the parents to come pick up their children,” Gwen waved her mobile phone. “Most of the children don’t know their phone numbers, though. We need computer access for those.”

Arthur smiled at Gwen gratefully. “Are they alright?”

“Yeah, they all think it’s really exciting,” said Gwen.

Percy tapped Arthur on the shoulder and pointed towards the left of the school building. 52 was coming back. He took off his helmet as he walked towards them and shoved it under his left arm. His hair clung to his head and his face shimmered with sweat.

“Fire is out. My men are checking for a reflash, but we don’t think it’s going to hap-“

“Reflash?” asked Arthur worried.

52’s eyes shot up to meet his. “Um, that’s when it looks like the fire is out, but a small flame remains or glowing material rekindles to a bigger flame. It’s standard procedure, if that’s what you’re wondering,” said 52 slowly and reassuringly.

“Yeah, no, okay, thanks,” said Arthur, shifting slightly in an attempt to hide his discomfort, but he knew by the pitiful look that Percy threw him that he hadn’t succeeded.

52 furrowed his brow in confusion for a second before becoming professional once more. “Anyway, the fire investigators will have a proper look at the damage and what might have caused it, but from what I can tell, you should have your electrical outlets checked. It looks like the sockets in the boys changing room short-circuited and since they’re right underneath wooden benches, big mistake by the way, it was basically a given that a full fire would develop. The boys’ changing room is unusable and the girls’ room is damaged as well, but I think your gym itself is fine.” He messed up his hair with his right hand before grabbing his helmet and making to go towards his truck.

Arthur, however, held him back. “Well, maybe the fire wouldn’t have been so bad if you’d arrived here earlier. You took way too long to get here,” he said angrily. “What if our children had been trapped inside that room?”

Gwen subtly put a hand on Arthur’s arm. 52’s eyes darted from her over to the children and back to Arthur. “With all due respect sir,” sounding a lot as if he didn’t think of Arthur as a ‘sir’. ”In a situation of panic and fear, the feeling of time is always distorted. I can assure you we arrived within five minutes, which is the standard dispatch time for the first pump on scene. Everything went according to protocol.” His eyes were dark. He was challenging Arthur, as he’d done so many times before with prats who believed they knew better how firefighting was done.

Gwen stepped in before Arthur could say anything else. “Thank you so much, Mr….”

“Emrys, Merlin Emrys.” He shook her hand and managed to smile at her as well as scowl at Arthur at the same time.

“Thank you, Mr Emrys. Which one is your station? I’m sure the kids would love to make you a little thank you gift.”

This time Merlin’s smile became a shining beacon that reached his eyes. “It’s Woodford fire station -the two trucks up here. The one truck round the back from 56 is from Ilford station. So yeah, anyway, thanks, anything made by the kids is bound to cheer up everybody at the station. We’ll look forward to it.” He waved at the children for good measure and received a multitude of waving hands in return.

“Right, the paramedics will take care of any injured persons, or well the one.” Merlin looked around at little Tommy, who was being patched up with a blue Band-Aid. “Oh, did he fall?” said Merlin in a worried tone. Gwen smiled at Merlin, who coughed and focused on the main issue again. “Um, was there anything else?” he asked, turning serious again.

“No,” answered Gwen, her hand still resting on Arthur’s arm who just seemed to stare at Merlin in suppressed anger, not affected at all by Merlin’s outbreak of worry about the children. “Are we allowed to enter the main building? It’s just; we have to phone all the parents so they can pick their children up.”

“As long as you stay away from the gym until the investigators have given the all clear, it will be fine.”

Gwen thanked him again and indicated to Percy that he should come with her. Merlin was left with Arthur, who still looked just as sour as he had two minutes ago. Merlin looked at him for a few seconds, before his struggle not to speak up broke: “You know, you should be grateful that nothing worse happened, then thank your staff for having such a good reaction to a difficult situation, possibly give them a pay raise and stop blaming me for being on freaking time. We are doing the best we can, and frankly, this was a job well done in my books, which is what I’m going to tell dispatch.”

 

 

With that, he brushed past Arthur, looking determinedly ahead. Arthur just stood there, dumbfounded, for a minute or two before slowly turning and walking towards the children. His eyes swept across the numerous little heads until a hand shot up waving. He ruffled a few hairs on his way through the crowd and spoke a few words of compliment and encouragement to all of them, but all he really wanted was to get to that waving hand.

“Are you alright, love?” He crouched down, facing the little girl with soft brown hair and his eyes.

“Yes.” She held out her arms and twisted them slightly to show him that everything was in order. “Are you?”

Arthur smiled, relief taking over every other emotion. “Yes, I’m alright too.”

“Good,” replied his daughter earnestly.

He kissed her forehead. “I have to go do a few things. Can you stay with Miss Jones until I’m done?” Arthur looked up to see Sophia Jones nod at him in agreement. He mouthed a ‘thank you’ at her, before turning back to his daughter and giving her a reassuring smile.

The fire crew was packing up, rolling up the hose, and storing all extra equipment away again. Merlin – the station manager as Arthur assumed - was sitting in the driver’s cabin with one leg hanging out. He was still talking to someone on the intercom and looking down at a clipboard every now and then. His eyes lifted to find Arthur looking at him. Arthur held his gaze, but then Merlin was interrupted by one of the others and by the time he looked back up, Arthur had gone inside the school building.

 

  
**~oOo~**   


 

The cap of the beer bottle skidded across the kitchen tiles and under the table. Arthur went to retrieve it, hitting his knee on one of the stools in the process.

“Jesus fuck,” he cursed. He’d been in a perpetual state of frustration all day long, for good reason, he thought. Now, Lynn was happily dreaming in her bed, hopefully about unicorns and rainbows and not about red hot flames coming at her; and he wanted to simply enjoy a nice cold beer and some mindless TV show before going to bed himself. He wished he could get properly drunk but that would make the following workday unbearable, so he resisted the urge. He’d just settled onto the couch when the phone rang, forcing him to get up again.

“Hello?”

“Hey, I just wanted to call to see if you’re alright.”

Arthur couldn’t decide whether he was glad or even more frustrated. In the end, he went with ‘fondly exasperated’. “I’m fine, Gwen.”

“And Lynn?”

Arthur shrugged. “She seems fine, but I won’t know for sure until she slept through the night without any nightmares.”

“Yeah, I guess. Well, if you need any help or anything-“

“Gwen.”

“Yes, I know. You just sometimes make it so easy to worry about you, Arthur. I can’t help – what’s that noise?”

“Porn,” said Arthur drily.

“Okaaay.”

“I think it’s Big Brother, but it looks like porn from here.”

“Please tell me, you just accidentally landed on Big Brother.”

“I just accidentally landed on Big Brother. Your phone call distracted me.”

Gwen laughed. "For a moment there, I was worried, Arthur.”

“I’m hanging up now. I want to enjoy my well-deserved beer.”

“Good night, Arthur. And like I said, if you need anything…”

“Thank you, Gwen. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He sat back down and watched Big Brother for five minutes, with increasing incredulity, and sipped his beer. However, he didn’t last long and left his unfinished beer to grow stale on the table overnight.

He woke up twice during the night; the images of red hot flames dancing before his eyes.

 

  
**~oOo~**   


 

Merlin woke up to the shrill alarm of his Doctor Who clock. In his state of half-sleep he mistook it for the siren and tried to scramble out of bed, ending up on the floor in a tangled mess of long limbs, sheets and a happy dog climbing all over him, trying to lick his face.

“Kilgharrah, stop, get off.” Merlin tried to wrestle him off, unsuccessfully. “Assis,” he mumbled into the now slightly wet sheets and Kilgharrah got off him, sitting calmly by his side except for the wildly wagging tail.

Merlin sighed. He would never understand why Kilgharrah reacted to French orders only. It didn’t make sense. “You’re a German shepherd, living in Britain. Why French?” Merlin straightened himself up, rubbing the happy dog behind his ears. Kilgharrah barked once and headed towards his food bowl, sitting down in front of it.

“Forget it. I’m having a shower first.”

Twenty minutes later, Merlin munched on cereal while Kilgharrah slobbered away on his special food selection, making a huge mess on the floor.

The front door opened and an exhausted looking Will came in. He dumped his backpack on the couch and sat opposite Merlin, taking away his bowl of cereal.

Merlin didn’t protest, but got a banana out of the fridge. “You look like shit.”

“God, we had two fucked-up accidents and one fire. Not one quiet moment. I need sleep,” moaned Will, stretching himself. “Why are you up? It’s your day off, and it’s 8 in the fucking morning.”

“I’ve been invited to the school assembly thing in that primary school we were sent to last week, remember?”

Will nodded around a mouthful. “I ‘ope dey baked biscuits or sumfing.” Will swallowed. “And don’t eat them all on your own. We did most of the work, you lazy bastard.”

Merlin looked comically affronted. “I was in charge.”

“Lucky bastard then.”

Merlin kicked him under the table. “You’re just jealous.”

“Hell yeah,” said Will loudly, spraying chunks of cereal all over the table. Merlin raised his hands away from the table to save his fruit from being contaminated.

“Sorry.” Will wiped the table down with the sleeve of his dirty hoodie, making Merlin laugh.

“I don’t think you’re making it any better.” Merlin got up and threw the peel in the rubbish bin. “I’ll do that later, you sleep.” He disappeared into the bathroom right next to the kitchen to brush his teeth.

“Are you taking Killy with you?” yelled Will. Kilgharrah growled at him. “Yes, alright, sorry. Not calling you Killy again. Aggressive dog.” He received another growl.

“Yeah, it’s a bunch of small school children, they’re going to love him and then maybe that weird guy won’t be on my back again,” said Merlin, leaning against the doorframe, the toothbrush dangling from his mouth.

Will snorted, spraying some more cereal. “That’s what you get for being in charge.”

Merlin disappeared for a second, rinsing out his mouth, before appearing in the kitchen and putting on a black well-cut leather jacket over his white LFB shirt. “But why do I always get the paranoid idiots or the ones who think they can do the job better?”

“You’re cute, you attract them,” replied Will with a wide grin.

“Thanks. Kilgharrah come on. I’ll see you before your night watch.”

Will raised a dripping spoon in acknowledgement and poured some more cereal into his bowl.

 

 

Once outside, Merlin turned left, away from his fire station and towards the school. He only needed about 15 minutes to walk to the school, walking at a swift pace as usual. There had always been something hurried about him. ‘It comes with the job’, was what his mother had told him when he’d just started. His father was the same. Always running about, doing things, never quieting down and never just lazing around. Merlin had picked that up from him. Just sometimes, Kilgharrah slowed him down.

“Come on, you’ve been sniffing that bush for five years now. I’m pretty sure it’s still the same bush as any other day.” Kilgharrah ignored him and continued sniffing. “Come! Heel! Sit!” Merlin stared in defeat. “Anything?...You know I am not giving up until you die! One day you are going to react to English commands! Ici!” Merlin shook his head as Kilgharrah immediately trotted to his side. “Bloody hell!”

By the time, Merlin reached the school Arthur was already impatiently waiting for him.

 

 

It had been Gwen’s idea to invite the firefighters over to their school. She said the kids all wanted to thank them and a lot of them had already drawn a picture or prepared something they wanted to say. Even his own daughter had come to show him a recipe for orange cupcakes that she wanted to make, so Arthur had reluctantly made the call to the station, asking whoever picked up whether there’d be the possibility of at least one of them coming down to the school. He had received a very enthusiastic answer and was sure then that he had that Merlin person on the other end. Arthur groaned on the inside.

“Is Friday okay? It’s my first day off.”

“Yes, Friday works well. We have an assembly every morning at 8:30, so if you could make it for that.”

“Yes, that’s fine. 8:30.” Arthur could hear a pen scratching across paper. “See you on Friday then.”

 

 

Kilgharrah leisurely jogged towards Arthur, sniffed at his trouser legs, barked once and then turned to look at Merlin.

“Looks like he wants to tell me something. Are you hiding anything harmful that I should know about?” said Merlin jokingly, but it irritated Arthur.

“The children are already inside waiting for you,” he said curtly, and lead the way.

 _Lost cause,_ was all Merlin could think.

The children oohed and aahed at Kilgharrah and waved at Merlin, recognizing him. Merlin and Kilgharrah both basked in the attention they received, not to mention the different biscuits, cupcakes and drawings.

The children asked him millions of questions and he tried to answer as violence-free as he could, shooting a look at the teachers occasionally to make sure he wasn’t overstepping any boundaries. Every so often he noticed how uncomfortable Arthur looked over on the side with his hands hanging stiffly by his side as if he was ready to punch someone.

As the kids filed out to their first, well second, lesson of the day, still waving at him, Merlin interrupted Arthur before he could even say anything.

“I noticed you didn’t file a complaint against the station concerning the conduct of our mission.”

Arthur stopped in his tracks and frowned. “Do you always talk like that? Conduct of our mission?”

Merlin shrugged. “That’s actually the light version of my professional talk,” he said, grinning. “It sometimes gets the better of me. It’s fun though, yelling obscure orders and confirmations down the intercom,” he added as Arthur continued to frown. “Don’t you do that? ‘Child 456 rampaging in corridor 3. Cease your action now’.”

“Too complicated, it’s easier to just say: Justin, shut up.”

Merlin’s eyes crinkled up and he laughed quietly. “Nice. So, you can make a joke. I’m pleasantly surprised. I thought you were a stuck-up humourless git.”

Taken aback by the bluntness, Arthur coughed and unnecessarily straightened his suit. “Well, thank you for coming to-“

“Who talked you out of it?” asked Merlin. “Filing the complaint?”

Arthur hesitated and then grumpily admitted: “Gwen, you met her on the day.”

“I must thank her. It’s a lot of paperwork, ‘cause if someone complains about the fire department, who saves lives after all, people think we must have really fucked up, sorry, messed up,” Merlin corrected himself, looking around to see if any children’s ears were still in the vicinity. They were alone, though.

“Yes, I get it, I was out of line and you were just doing your job. I’m sorry.” Arthur shoved his hands in his trouser pockets, a gesture that didn’t go unnoticed by Merlin. He immediately seemed more approachable.

“It’s alright. I get it too, you know,” he said, trying to sound as understanding as he could. “An entire school with hundreds of little children, one of them your own, and it’s on fire? It’s a scary thing. It’s scary, even for us.”

“Is it?”

“Oh yes, you jump on to the pump and can’t help hoping all the children got out in time. Schools knock the breath out of you for a second.”

“Wha-“ This time Arthur interrupted himself and changed his mind, instead asking: “How did you know I have a child here?”

“I watched you. It was the only child you directly went to and talked to for more than just a few seconds. Plus, you kissed her on the forehead. Not really hard to figure out,” said Merlin, wondering what Arthur had been about to ask instead.

“Right.”

Merlin waited for more, but when it didn’t come, he stuck his hand out. “It was a pleasure and thanks for all the biscuits and cupcakes.” He raised the two full bags a bit. “The guys will love them. We haven’t tried baking for a while. The last three times, the sirens went off and well, once it landed on the floor, the other time the cake burnt in the oven and nearly set our station on fire and the third time, we forgot about the dough until it stank up our kitchen. And I’m going to stop talking now. See you.” He waved curtly and hopped off the small stage of the assembly hall.

Arthur watched him walk along the rows of tiny colourful chairs. At the end of the rows, Merlin hesitated and then turned around.

“You know, if you like we can do some fire education for the kids and teachers and first aid for the teachers. We do that all the time. Just some simple stuff that kids can follow and basic first aid, but it helps save lives in case something like this happens again.”

Before he knew what he was doing, Arthur agreed and said he’d call again when he’d talked to all the teachers.

Just like that, he would be seeing this Merlin Emrys again.

 

 

Percy was the first to speak up positively about the suggestion of doing some fire and first aid education. Within two days he had a whole week of activities around emergencies of any sort organised, presenting the outline and schedule to Arthur and, at the assembly after school, to all the teachers.

All Arthur had to do in the end was to sign off on it, suck up to the council for some extra money and call the various emergency departments, including the fire station.

“Woodford Station, London Fire Brigade. How can I help?”

“Um, hi, my name is Arthur Pendragon, I’m calling from Albion primary school. Am I-?

“Oh hey, mate, tell your kids the biscuits were awesome. They were gone within two days. White and Red didn’t even get any and we had a serious battle with Blue. They got a few in the end, but man they were really, really good. Can we have some more? Oi!”

There was a bit of a scramble on the other end of the line and judging by the sounds, someone was being choked.

“Hello, Merlin here. Please ignore Gwaine. One mention of food and he goes mental. He literally peed himself at the sight of all the biscuits.”

“I did not!” yelled Gwaine in the background.

“We got it on video! Makes for very good entertainment,” assured Merlin. “So, how can I be of service?”

“Well, I was wondering if you’d still be available for that education thing you mentioned.” As he said it, Arthur fidgeted with the edge of the paper in front of him, shooting glances at the door, willing it to stay closed. When his conscious realised what he was doing, he coughed and got up from the chair and walked to the window.

“Hey, yeah, definitely. When are we talking about?”

Arthur went back to his desk to look at the dates, which he knew by heart. “Preferably in the week from the 26th to the 30th.”

Merlin was quiet for a bit and Arthur could hear people playing ping-pong in the background. There was a loud cheer and Merlin yelling: “Lance, you better be winning,” before he focused his attention on Arthur again.

“Right, we could do the Monday and the Tuesday, but we’ve got the day watch on Wednesday and Thursday and the night watch on Friday, so the Friday really isn’t ideal either. But that’s the Green Watch. If you don’t want to see me again, I can give you Red for Thursday and Friday, Blue for Friday, and White for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.”

“Okay, um well, I think, um, what?” Arthur had tried to write down what Merlin said, but somewhere in all those days and colours, he’d gotten lost.

Merlin laughed. “Red, Blue, White, Green, they’re our watch colours. I’m the green watch, but the station has to be manned at all times, obviously, so we have alternating shifts. Two day shifts, two night shifts, four days off.”

“Four?”

“Hey, it’s a tough job,” said Merlin indignantly. “Besides look who’s talking, you get six weeks in the summer.”

“It’s a tough job,” said Arthur and he found himself smiling. “Well, Monday and Tuesday are absolutely fine. Monday morning for the kids, Tuesday afternoon for the teachers?”

“Other way around please, Monday teachers, Tuesday kids. With day watch on Wednesday, I’d rather we have the afternoon off on Tuesday, or else my team is going to hate me.”

Arthur nodded and then remembered that Merlin couldn’t see him. “Right, that’s settled then.”

“Yeah, cool. Looking forward to it.”

Arthur chuckled. “You look forward to everything.”

“Not everything. And in case you hadn’t noticed: That’s a compliment.” There was an awkward pause. “Gotta go. Morgana is kicking Lance’s arse, I have to go distract her. I’ll talk to you later, Arthur.”

Merlin didn’t wait for a goodbye from Arthur’s side and Arthur didn’t quite know what to make of his farewell. He put the phone back onto the receiver and scribbled down the dates.

 

  
**~oOo~**   


 

Merlin opened the door to the women’s changing room and peeked inside. Morgana was just putting on her bra and looked up at the breeze of cool air that Merlin had let in.

“Stalker!”

Merlin grinned as the door fell into the lock behind him. “You’ve lost weight,” he said, nodding at her visible ribs.

“Look who’s talking.”

Merlin waved her comment away. “I’ve always been this thin. You haven’t.”

“Thank you for worrying about me, but you’re the one who’s putting us through such rigorous training.”

“That was one exercise. One. And all you guys have done is complain about it instead of thanking me, seeing as it came in very handy today.”

Morgana leaned down to kiss his cheek, before she buttoned up her shirt.

“Just saying. Don’t tell me you didn’t apply what we practised in that training session.”

Morgana sighed, tossing one of her shiny strands of hair over her shoulder. “Merlin, when are you going to stop doubting yourself so much? We know you, you don’t have to prove yourself and you don’t need us to tell you that you did great today and that we indeed followed the protocol according to the training session from last week. Now stop being such a drama queen and invite me for a coffee.”

Merlin leaned back against the damp and cold wall. It was a relief after all the heat of the afternoon. “My dear Morgana, what do you think about going for a coffee?”

“Oh well, my dear Merlin, that is an excellent idea as we have business to discuss anyway,” she said, grabbing his wrist and dragging him out of the room.

“Business?”

 

 

They went to their usual coffee shop round the corner from the station. On a good day and with the right barista they got their coffees for free, though not their cakes.

“Which one should I take?” asked Morgana, leaning around other customers to get a better view at the selection of cakes and muffins.

“The double chocolate muffin and the New York double cream strawberry dream cheesecake. Jesus, what a name.”

“Two?”

“You need it, girl!”

She shoved him lightly, but Merlin was distracted by the bell over the door to care too much. A small girl with her brown hair in a pigtail entered the shop followed by Arthur Pendragon.

“Shit,” whispered Merlin, quickly turning around.

“What?” asked Morgana, not bothering to turn around.

“Nothing. We’re up.” Merlin pointed ahead at the waiting barista, hoping Arthur just wouldn’t recognise him or acknowledge him or else Morgana would have a field day.

“Oh, hello, um, Merlin.”  
 _Ah shit, well hope for the best and kick Morgana as often as possible._ “Hi, Arthur. How are you?”

Morgana jerked her head around in the middle of her order just as Merlin was smiling at Arthur with teeth exposed.

_Don’t smile._

“Hi, yeah, I’m good. My school is still standing, so pretty good, actually.”

“You’re welcome.”

“This is Lynn by the way,” said Arthur, tearing his gaze away from Merlin and pointing to the little girl who was staring at all the cakes.

“She’s beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

Merlin took a deep breath, his eyes darting all over the place.

“So-“ “So, I-“

They laughed and Arthur stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets, swaying slightly on his soles.

“Your station’s around the corner right?” Arthur jerked his head in the general direction of ‘out the window, down the road’.

“Yeah. We come here often.” _Stop smiling like you’re a deranged drug-addict, Merlin._

“It’s practically our post-work ritual, after the night watch,” chimed in Morgana, holding a tray up that almost overflowed with coffee and cakes.

“Three muffins? I’m not eating two.”

“No, it’s for Lynn. You order your coffee, Arthur, it’s Arthur right? And we’ll be sitting in the armchairs by the window.” Arthur looked around and saw that his daughter had already made herself comfortable and was eagerly awaiting the double chocolate muffin.

“She’s going to be really hyper today,” sighed Arthur.

“Oh god, sorry about that,” said Merlin, laying an apologetic hand on Arthur’s arm. “I can just tell Morgana that you had to go or something.” Merlin jerked his hand away as he realised that Arthur’s eyes had wandered to it. “Sorry, I’m a very touchy-feely person. Sorry.” _Dammit._

“No, it’s – it’s fine. I’ll go get my coffee then.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

Merlin glared at his colleague as he walked towards their comfortable corner, but Morgana played the innocent angel.

“This is nice, isn’t it?”

“I hate you,” he whispered at her.

“Maybe, but judging by your smile, you definitely don’t hate _him_.” Morgana grinned as if Christmas and all the birthdays of her life had fallen on this day and bit into her muffin with visible pleasure.

“Shut up, his daughter is sitting there eating a muffin.”

“Very cute daughter by the way,” said Morgana, half of the muffin still in her mouth. “Very cute and handsome father, too. But I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“Daddy is very pretty,” piped up chocolate-mouthed Lynn from across the table. Merlin nearly fell out of his chair.

Morgana leaned forward, smiling at Lynn. “He is very pretty, but so are you.”

“Who’s very pretty?” asked Arthur as he stepped up to his armchair.

“You are. At least that’s what Lynn and Merlin think,” replied Morgana, earning a not so subtle glare from Merlin. “I haven’t decided yet.”

Arthur laughed uncomfortably, throwing a glance at Merlin, who had a slight blush crawling up his face.

“So, are you his sister or girlfriend or..?” Arthur vaguely pointed at them with his coffee cup.

“Sister? No. Girlfriend? Probably would be if he were straight, but alas, he’s as gay as a unicorn.”

“That’s me. The fire-fighting gay unicorn.”

“I saw him stab a fire demon with his horn once. True fact that.” Morgana tried to keep her face straight and almost succeeded, but Lynn was giggling so hard that it was infectious. Arthur’s eyes crinkled in the corners even though his mouth displayed only a small smile. Merlin thought the crinkles made him even more handsome and he had to tear his eyes away from him.

Morgana was pushing the plate with the cheesecake into his hand. “Now eat, you need the sugar to shit proper rainbows out your arse, unicorn.”

“Morgana!”

This time Arthur laughed properly while his daughter looked shocked. “Daddy says that’s a bad word.”

“Oh god, sorry. I forgot. It just sort of happens. You didn’t hear that, Lynn, right?” Lynn shook her head and Morgana blew her a kiss.

“Ah, you’re a colleague,” said Arthur. “That sort of language seems to run in the profession.”

Both firefighters nodded vigorously. “See, it’s easier fighting fires when you can yell insults at them.”

“Besides, life is short. Why waste it on trying to find complicated ways of speaking politely,” added Merlin. He noticed Arthur’s cringing during the first sentence, but decided not to comment on it. Arthur stretched out a hand towards his daughter, placing it on her back.

“Have you finished?” he asked in a soft voice and Lynn jumped out of her chair in answer. “Right, sorry, but we have to get to school. You two, um, have a good day, or night, I don’t know. You’re probably going to sleep for the entire day, aren’t you?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Well, good night then. And I’ll see you Monday after next.” Arthur waved.

“Can’t wait,” called Merlin after him and simultaneously hoped Arthur hadn’t heard. The crinkles around his eyes and the blush on his cheeks as he left the shop said differently. Merlin sunk back into his chair red with embarrassment.

Morgana sighed happily. “I love it when you’re making a fool of yourself.”

“Why did I do that? Why? That was stupid. Bloody hell.” He buried his face in his hands, shaking his head from side to side to emphasize his point.

“If you care to have my opinion-“

“No.”

“He’s very handsome, obviously intelligent, his daughter is adorable and he’s definitely interested.”

Merlin’s head jerked up. “You think?”

“The smile when I said you’re gay. Definitely! I could feel the vibes. So when is this thing at his school?”

“26th. Why?”

Morgana carefully sipped at her coffee before answering. “We have got to work on your ‘how do I not embarrass myself in front of handsome men’-strategy.”

 

  
**~oOo~**   


 

A week later, Arthur was fumbling with the phone, balancing it on his knee, picking it up, placing it on the cushion to his right, dialling Gwen’s number, hanging up again. Every so often, he listened for any noise from Lynn’s room, but she was sound asleep. He’d had a similar routine for the past two days, ever since he’d talked to Gwen about his meeting with Merlin and Morgana in the shop and she’d told him that bright smiles and touches on the arm and making jokes equalled flirting. He’d wondered whether he’d really forgotten all that. After that, he’d started to imagine what it would be like to be dating again. What it would be like to be dating Merlin Emrys, the firefighter.

He picked the phone up again, took a deep breath, and dialled the number. It rang twice.

_“London Fire Brigade, Station 52. How can I help?”_

Arthur coughed. “Um, right, um, can I speak to Merlin Emrys? Is he there?”

There was a rustle on the other end of the phone line. _“Hang on. The watch ended an hour ago, but I think he might still be in the conference room. Oi, Em, phone for you.”_ The squeak of a door in the background rang down the line, followed by the sound of feet shuffling on the floor.

Arthur fought the urge to hang up again. What was he going to say? He didn’t even really know why he’d called.

 _“Hello?”_ Even from that one word, Arthur could tell that Merlin was exhausted and he forgot all about hanging up.

“Hi, it’s Arthur.”

“Arthur! Hi!” Arthur smiled at how more awake Merlin suddenly sounded. It was pleasing to think that he might have caused that.

“Hi, how are you?”

“I’m good. You?” _Liar._ But Arthur dismissed it or else Merlin would possibly start sharing some gruesome story he really didn’t want to hear.

“Good too. Well, I, um, I called be-“

“We’re still going to show up on Monday, don’t worry. All my men have agreed to come along, so you’re going to have a full house. I’ll try to keep the swearing to a minimum. They can expect punishment otherwise,” joked Merlin, but again Arthur could sense the exhaustion and possibly something else.

“You had day watch today?”

There was a pause and Arthur wished he could see Merlin’s face. “Yeah.”

“And tomorrow?”

“Same.”

“Oh, okay. Right. Okay.”

“Why?” asked Merlin.

“Well, I just thought that maybe, if you’d have been free tomorrow or had the night watch or well, yeah, we, um, could have gone for a pint or something and discussed things. About Monday and whatever else.”

Gwen would kill him if she knew what a mess he was making of it. To be fair the last time he’d asked someone out, he had been a lot younger and a lot smoother and generally more confident when it came to that sort of thing. He ended up marrying her, after all. It just was such a long time ago.

“Any other night, I’d say yes, but like I said, got day watch again tomorrow and a stack of papers that I need to work through. Unfortunately, you really called at a bad time. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” said Arthur a bit too quickly.

“We should do it another time?” The question mark in Merlin’s voice caused a somersault in Arthur’s stomach.

“Yeah, yeah, definitely.”

“Okay. Is there actually much to discuss about Monday?”

“Erm, no, not really.” Arthur laughed nervously. “Well, you’ll get access to the assembly hall to do whatever it is you do and well, you know where it is. So yeah, that’s actually it.”

There was an awkward pause between them, and a strange dread and sense of embarrassment took over. “Well, I just... I don’t know.” Arthur ruffled through his hair, pulling it up to clear his thoughts. It didn’t help.

“You don’t know?” Merlin’s question was tentative.

Arthur huffed a laugh. “Not really, no.”

“Um, well, tell me when you do?”

“Sorry, I’m keeping you from your work. I’ll... I’ll see you on Monday.” Arthur didn’t wait for a goodbye from Merlin, but simply pressed the red button on the phone to disconnect.

“Fuck! What am I doing?” Arthur got up, switched off the lamp and walked to his bedroom in darkness.

 

 

“What did you do that for?” said Gwen in the staff room the next day. “It was going rather well I’d say until you said ‘I don’t know’.

“Not so loud, Gwen, I’m the flipping Head. And what’s so wrong with ‘I don’t know’. I actually really don’t know what I’m doing.” Arthur stirred his coffee even though he had added neither sugar nor milk. He just liked to have something to do, something he could focus his eyes on.

“You’re moving on. You’re trying to get a date. Which is a good thing, you know. But for that good thing to happen you have to call him again and do it properly this time.”

Arthur shook his head. “No, I’m just going to wait till Monday and see what happens.”

“Arthur.”

“I’m going to wait till Monday and see what happens,” he repeated.

Gwen stared at him unrelenting and it was these moments, when he always wondered how fierce she could really be, if she wanted to. She definitely had the parents under control and that was saying a lot.

Arthur sighed. “Believe it or not, Gwen, this isn’t as easy as it might look to you.”

Gwen’s eyes grew soft. “I know it’s not-“

“Do you?” Arthur threw his spoon in the sink and left the staff room. He knew he’d been unkind, but all the pushing and prodding didn’t help. He needed to think.

 

  
**~oOo~**   


 

Merlin was slumped against the window of the pump truck with his eyes closed. Sweat glistened on his skin and his full hair was plastered to his head. There were several smudges of dirt and soot on his face. His helmet was resting on his knees and his jacket was open and had slipped from his left shoulder.

They had been called to a fire on the fourth floor of a block of flats as the second pump unit; their neighbouring station being first. However, as they arrived at the scene the first pumps hadn’t arrived yet and the fire had been burning longer than should have been the case.

He and Morgana took the first hose and ran into the building, only to find that the fire had spread to the third floor via the staircase and that parts of the floor were crumbling above. Merlin had immediately requested two more pumps, whilst yelling at dispatch where the bloody fuck pump 1 was.

By the time, the fire was under control there were 8 pump units at the scene, but still no sign of the missing one and Merlin was furious until he found out that they had had an accident and two of their firemen were on their way to the hospital due to severe injuries.

Merlin opened his eyes as they pulled into the station. Gaius was waiting for them with Kilgharrah on top of the stairs.

“I’ve put the kettle on, guys,” he said with a sympathetic smile. He resented the title housekeeper and always insisted on being called station guard but Merlin really couldn’t think of a more appropriate title than housekeeper. He took care of the books and other organisational stuff like fundraising, often cleaned the station when it should have been their job to do that, patched up minor wounds, made tea and tried his best to keep them entertained and occupied on a slow day. Gaius did as much - and more – as he could do considering his age. Merlin’s father knew him from his early days as a firefighter and now Gaius was there as part of the strong support system they all were for each other in this station. The only set-back: Gaius wasn’t the best cook, but when all of them had been out on a job and had no time to cook themselves it didn’t really matter how it tasted as long as it was hot.

“What happened?” asked Merlin and Gaius was ready with his answer.

“It was on the roundabout on Colchester Avenue, a guy in a BMW was in the wrong lane, wanted to get out of the roundabout and crossed right in front of the first pump. ‘Cause he didn’t see them.”

“And was deaf, apparently,” interrupted Gwaine who stopped at Merlin’s side.

“Well, the first pump hit him and swerved and crashed into the sideline boulders, which would have been okay, but the second pump didn’t manage to brake or swerve in time so they hit the back of the first. Basically, all of them are injured in some way, two going directly to ICU.”

“BMW guy?”

“A few scratches and a big court case.”

Merlin wiped his hand over his face. “If people had been trapped in that building, they might be dead now because of that idiot.”

“Never trust a BMW,” said Gwaine, clapping both Gaius and Merlin on the shoulders before going off to help the others clean up the pump and equipment.

Gaius looked at Merlin’s tired face. “You did well, Merlin.”

“There was no one in danger anyway.”

Gaius shook his head. “Still, you reacted well to the situation. It was a tough one. Let’s hope there’s nothing else today.”

Merlin checked the big clock just above the hangers. It was ten past 6. “I hope so too, or else we’ll be doing overtime.”

Merlin took his time in the shower, alternating between warm and cold water and rinsing his hair twice. He really shouldn’t be showering now, not when he was still on duty and the alarm could go off any second. If, then it wouldn’t be the first time though that he would run out of the showers naked, dripping wet, and jump into his fire suit. If he thought about it, they’d all probably done it at some point.

By the time, he was dressed in his trousers and grey Brigade T-shirt, the smell of curry was winding its way through the station. He smiled.

“Hi, Elena.”

The blonde was standing in front of the hob, stirring the immense amount of curry. Gwaine was leaning against the counter right beside her, dunking pieces of Naan bread into the curry.

“You are too good to us,” said Merlin as he kissed both her cheeks.

“Gwaine just told me I picked the right night to treat you guys.” She got an affirmative cheer from the rest of the crew as they walked into the kitchen. Merlin opened the fridge and starting handing out cokes.

“Can’t we have the beer? It’s only 30 minutes till watch change.”

“And right now a gas pipe could be exploding in a house in our district. No, Gwaine.”

Gwaine pouted. “You are no fun, Merlin.” Merlin showed Gwaine the middle finger and closed the fridge to prove his resolve. Will and Morgana had been getting out the dishes and cutlery, setting the table. Finally, the huge pot of curry and several small bowls of rice were put on the table, though not without injury as Elena burnt her finger, and it looked as homely as a fire station could look. They used to have a candle, under the condition that they’d always remember to blow it out in case their dinner got interrupted. One time they forgot and the candle had to go. Having a fire station burn to the ground because of a forgotten candle didn’t exactly invite the public’s trust.

“Merlin, can you pass me the bread? Thank- Gwaine, I asked first.”

“’M on the way.”

“A good splash of curry please.”

“God, I’m bloody starving.”

“Can we have roast beef on Sunday, Elena?”

“A bit more.”

“This is fucking excellent.”

“Watch where you’re spraying your food.”

“Really delicious.”

“Sorry, Morgana.”

“Better than the curry down at whathisname.”

“Aladdin.”

“Anybody want some hot sauce? Lance?”

“Wait, seriously? Aladdin?”

“No way, I still haven’t recovered from your prank.”

“Like the Disney film?”

“Like the Disney film.”

“Will, pass me more rice.”

“Anybody up for some drinks at the pub after work?”

“Count me in.”

“Yup.”

“Are you okay?” asked Morgana out of the blue before taking her next bite. Merlin’s head jerked up and he found her looking at him.

“Yeah, fine. Sorry, just exhausted.” He smiled at her, crinkly eyes and all. But this was Morgana, the one person they had so far never managed to prank.

“You looked like you were thinking about something very hard.”

“Merlin, stop thinking. It doesn’t suit you and you’ll get wrinkles,” yelled Gwaine from the other end of the table. Elena hit him on the arm, knocking over her coke can in the process, which resulted in cheers all around the table.

“We know who’s cleaning the kitchen afterwards,” said Will, directing his comment at a groaning Gwaine.

“Cheers, mate.”

“It’s your wife, man. You should help her. L’égalité and all that.”

“Stop speaking French, Will. Kilgharrah’s got that from you, hasn’t he?” whined Merlin, which caused everyone around the table to break into laughter.

“But it’s funny. He’s a French dog now,” replied Will, looking very pleased with himself.

Merlin threw his crumpled napkin at Will. “Yeah, except I never learned a word of bleeding French in my entire life and now I’ve got a French dog.”

“Technically he’s German.”

“Shut up, Morgana,” said Merlin, laughing loudly.

“Merlin, stop laughing. Doesn’t suit you and you’ll get wrinkles,” called Gwaine again, this time picking up his own drink from the table so that Elena had no chance of knocking it over while she hit him again.

Merlin threw a piece of bread across the table at Gwaine, but it landed on Owain’s plate.

“Ew.”

“Food fight!”

“Hell no!”

“You are such children!”

“I hope you’re cleaning it up after you’re done.” All of them looked around towards the door where Tristan was standing with folded arms and a serious expression, looking very much like the Station manager he was. He could be intimidating, but he was a good man and a good leader and Merlin liked working with him.

“Oh we intended to leave it for you bastards,” replied Gwaine, also folding his arms. “Don’t want you getting bored on the night watch.”

“How considerate,” said Tristan. “How was your watch?”

“Hot!”

Tristan motioned for Merlin to follow him and he got up readily. The quicker he was done with the watch change, the sooner he could get back to his curry and properly enjoy it. He filled Tristan in on the accident before going through the usual routine. Tristan clapped him on the shoulder, like nearly everybody else had done that day and still Merlin didn’t necessarily feel like he deserved it.

When he came back 10 minutes later, everybody was already done with their curry and the still half-full pot had been placed in front of Merlin’s plate.

“You’ve got to finish it.”

Merlin smiled. “Right, don’t forget. First-aid training and a bit of fire education for the kids and teachers from that primary school on Monday and Tuesday. Monday at 1 o’clock in front of the school.”

All of them nodded and murmured that Merlin should stop being such a mother and that they wouldn’t forget. Merlin felt a surge of affection for this team. “Great. Now piss off to the pub, I’ll clean up and join you there. And no, I’m not finishing this.” There was a lot of screeching of chairs and clattering of plates and forks and all of them left in a flurry of chatter. All, except Morgana.

“So,” she began. “Arthur.”

“Whatever you’ve heard, it’s not true,” said Merlin.

“You sure? ‘Cause I heard from Gwaine that he blew you in the back of the pump.”

Merlin remained silent and Morgana’s grin vanished.

“Like I said he is very handsome, intelligent and overall cute. Maybe a bit of a stick-up-the-arse? He seemed a bit too ‘everything-has-to-be-in-order’ during the fire for my taste.”

“You’d probably be a stick-up-the-arse if you had to take care of an entire school and it was on fire and then you meet the people who in your opinion weren’t there fast enough.”

Morgana shook her head. “No, I’d be running around, screaming in panic and then giving my everlasting thanks to the people who arrived exactly on time.” She looked at him pointedly, before grinning again. “You know, if I weren’t a firefighter.”

Merlin looked at her with that look of ‘like that would ever have happened’.

“Anyway, down in the coffee shop he was really nice and likable. Maybe his stick isn’t too far in and you could help him getting it out.”

Merlin shook his head in amusement. “I’m just going to ignore your innuendo. And you know; he also wasn’t actually that bad on that Friday, when I went to the school for the biscuits? He even made a joke. And when we talked on the phone it was nice, mostly.” conceded Merlin.

“Hold up. You talked on the phone with him?” Morgana pushed away the pot with the curry.

“Yeah, three days ago.”

“And what do you mean mostly?”

“He got weird towards the end, like he didn’t even remember why he’d called me in the first place. For a moment I thought he might have been asking me out during all his mumble-jumble, but I’m not so sure anymore. Besides he’s got a kid, and probably an ex-wife somewhere, and completely straight and just interested in his school and the training next week, and I’m going to look at his very handsome jaw line from a distance and that’s that.”

“We shall see, Mister. And like I said, coffee shop. He made a much better impression than the stick-up-the-arse thing during the fire.” She was leaning her head on her folded hands and staring at him and Merlin realised that she was probably already plotting how to get him and Arthur on a date. “You two would look very handsome together.”

“Shut up, as I said I’m not even entirely sure he’s interested. I’m just going to wait till Monday and see what will happen.” He scratched his still slightly wet hair.

“You’re already completely infatuated.”

“Am not.”

“Are definitely.”

“You are a child.”

At that, Morgana simply smiled in a way that looked slightly deranged. Merlin blocked her face with his hand and finished his curry in relative peace, groaning at his full stomach when he put his fork down.

“Did I really do a good job today?” he asked after a while.

Morgana sighed. “Yes, you did. I knew you were worried about that. You did fabulous. Nothing went wrong at the scene, we stopped the fire-“

“Eventually,” Merlin cut in.

“We stopped the fire.” She got up and started filling the sink. “We need to get a dishwasher.”

Merlin grabbed one of the kitchen towels, ready to dry whatever Morgana gave him. “It just felt so chaotic, and there were moments when I was really lost and afraid I’d missed something and one of my men was in there being crushed by a burning beam, because I forgot to pull him out or something like that.”

“Merlin, just so you know and please don’t take this the wrong way: but usually, we know what we’re doing and we’d all just not give a fuck about your orders if it was obvious that they would kill us.” Merlin raised his eyebrows. “Not that I think that you would give us dangerous orders on purpose.”

“Thank you for your trust.”

“You’re welcome.”

 

  
**~oOo~**   


 

The door opened and a strip of low light shone onto his bed. A sleepy-eyed Lynn came padding into his bedroom. Arthur sat up, his full attention on his daughter.

“Hey, what’s up?” he asked with a hoarse voice.

Lynn pulled back the blanket a bit and crawled into the bed, sliding close to Arthur. He turned onto his side. “What happened? Did you have a bad dream?”

“I miss Mummy.” It was still a punch to the gut, hearing his daughter say those three words.

“I know. Me too.” He put his arm around small shoulders and she curled up into a ball.

“She’s watching us, right?”

Arthur had once said that to calm Lynn down, to make her stop crying, because her crying had made things so much worse. She had picked up on it and now two years later it was a thought that not only comforted her but also him.

“Yeah, she’s watching us.” Lynn hummed happily at that.

 

Soon after the crying had stopped and Lynn had somehow accepted that her mother was watching, but not going to come back, she had demanded big sheets of paper. Arthur had bought a whole box and put it in Lynn’s room. Three days later, she had come out of her room, carrying a huge pile of these papers. There had been a trail of them leading out of the room into the living room and she had been adding paper after paper, going all the way through to the kitchen and back. She had put three on the bathroom floor and then called for Arthur to help her hang some on the walls. They had plastered all the doors with them.

“You want some too, daddy?” she had asked him, and he knew she’d meant his bedroom. Arthur had shaken his head, forcing down the lump in his throat.

“Okay,” was all Lynn had said before she had disappeared into her bedroom again.

He still wasn’t quite sure whether she had understood that he just couldn’t bear staring at these pictures, at all the hearts and I miss you’s and little picture stories or simple math problems or photographs that Lynn had drawn, glued or written on the paper.

_“So mummy isn’t bored, or forgets us.”_

The urge to tear all the make-shift posters down again had been immense, so he’d locked himself in his room, lain on the bed and tried hard not to cry. Hours later, he’d gotten up to check on Lynn. She’d been asleep and there had been a small plate with bread crumbs and a half empty glass of milk next to her bed. Just the simple knowledge that that had been something Lynn had never done before, that Lynn had never prepared her own meal, finally forced out the tears that had been fighting to get out all afternoon. Roles reversed it had been Lynn who’d comforted him that night.

_“Maybe she’ll come back, daddy.”_

 

“She’s always watching us, Lynn. Now go to sleep, love.”

She closed her eyes, but Arthur saw how her little brain worked, creasing her forehead ever so slightly.

“Is she watching the firemen who saved us as well?” she asked after a while, her voice betraying her anxiety by going unusually high at the end. “Or is that too much work for Mummy?”

Arthur tried to suppress a laugh. “I’m pretty sure she’s watching them as well.”

His daughter smiled up at him. “Good. ‘Cause they need it more than we do.”

“They do, yes. Try and sleep now, love.” He kissed her on the forehead and drew the blanket a bit higher.

Gwen always kept telling him how well he and Lynn had dealt with the whole situation, how much they’d healed in the past two years, but Arthur sometimes doubted whether they’d really healed at all. Sometimes it felt as if there was simply a plaster over the wound, which could be torn off so easily.

Lynn was still drawing pictures and putting them on doors and walls or laying them outside in the backyard when the sun was shining. They were still seeking each other out for comfort and shared grief. Lynn sometimes had episodes of utter rebellion in school and the teachers had talked to pphim about that, sent her to his office or some had even asked whether she was seeing a therapist. Then in the afternoons at home she had always been an absolute angel again, crying into his shoulder and apologising to Mummy. Arthur had never really known how to deal with that.

The fact that Lynn looked so much like her mother didn’t make it easier.

Arthur closed his eyes, but it was some time before he stopped thinking about Mithian and fell asleep.

 

 

  
**~oOo~**   


  


[Part 2](http://leviathans-moon.livejournal.com/161690.html)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thing with putting out fires in schools was: they often led to biscuits and squiggly paintings of happy firemen. The fire in Albion primary school, however, leads Merlin to Arthur and his daughter Lynn; to more biscuits, but also pancakes; to fun and butterflies; and to a whole new world of letting someone in; ready or not.
> 
> Careful, don't burn your fingers!

**~oOo~**

Merlin had always been slightly intimidated by teachers. There was just something about them that made him nervous. 

“Teachers are a strange species,” whispered Gwaine from his side. “They’ve got so much power but all the time pretend to be so normal. It’s scary and strangely fascinating.”

Morgana just shook her head at Gwaine, who mouthed ‘what?’ at her. 

Merlin stepped forward, his stomach twisting in a mess of knots, but as his eyes roamed the room after all the teachers had settled down, he noticed that Arthur wasn’t there. The knots simply flopped down into his knees in a big heavy ball. He hadn’t realised how much he’d looked forward to seeing Arthur again; Arthur, the humourless git with a stick up the arse and a face for which a law should exist protecting it from any harm.

He tried to clear his mind and raised his voice to drown out the whispers.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to your very special first aid and fire education course. Just out of curiosity: Is it weird being the pupils again?” he asked and it earned him a good laugh. Most of the teachers shook their heads. 

“Okay, you all know the stuff about closing the windows and doors, leaving all personal things behind, going to a nice faraway position to get together and do a headcount. That’s obvious, because that’s what you all did when the fire broke out. Don’t have to repeat that.” He received a few appreciative nods, like he was doing this educating people thing right. “Now, do you all know what you should do if you happen to be trapped in a room and there’s smoke coming in?” 

 

There were a lot of teachers who wanted to shake their hands and say thank you. Gwaine had been dragged away by a few teachers after he mentioned that he’d always wanted to see the staff room, to be on the other side. Half of the team had simply followed them. Helen was on the loo. Lance was standing a bit off to the side talking to Gwen, if Merlin remembered her name correctly. So it was him and Morgana who had to fight their way through the mass of hands and grateful comments. 

“The kids have been very excited about all of this. I mean, they always tend to be a bit on the excited side, but even more so since they’ve been saved by real firemen. Well, and firewomen,” said a very tall teacher with slightly wild hair and a beard, who had introduced himself as Leon. 

Merlin waved his comment away. “She and Helen are just like the guys. Firemen is fine.” 

“Which doesn’t mean that I’m a lesbian, as people always assume. I like men,” added Morgana. Merlin coughed not so discreetly into his fist and didn’t even try to hide his knowing smirk. 

“I’m just saying, it’s a stereotype that I always get pushed into and I’d like to give the right information right from the start.”

“No problem,” said Leon, grinning from ear to ear, looking from Morgana to Merlin and back. 

“So, where’s your headmaster? ‘Cause Merlin here was looking for him.” Morgana smiled in a deranged way again, clapping Merlin on the shoulder. 

Leon didn’t seem to notice anything strange about that smile. “He’s probably in his office. Busy man. Good headmaster.”

Morgana nodded vigorously as if she’d known Arthur for years. “And where exactly is that office?”

“Just up the stairs to the second floor and on the right, through the glass door, straight through. It’s the one with a picture full of butterflies on the door.” 

Morgana turned Merlin to the right side and gave him a not so soft shove towards the door. “Go on, Merlin. You wanted to talk to him, didn’t you?” 

Merlin smirked back at Morgana. “Of course I did.” He looked down at his watch. “Didn’t you have a dinner with your husband, Morgana?” he said before walking away.

“I don’t actually have a husband,” he heard Morgana say to Leon. 

 

The picture full of butterflies turned out to be enormous, so enormous that it covered almost the entire glass door, leaving no chance to simply sneak a glance inside. 

Merlin hesitated. He didn’t even know what he was doing here. This guy was probably happily married with a second child in nursery school or on the way. 

“Come in.” Merlin was shocked out of his thoughts by Arthur’s voice and he sheepishly opened the door. 

“How did you-?”

“Your shadow at the bottom of the door.” Merlin looked down to where the picture didn’t reach the bottom of the door and had to fight the urge to hit his forehead against the door. Instead, he pointed at the picture. 

“That’s nice.”

“My wife and daughter made it after I’d complained too much about how Vivian, my secretary, could always look into my office. But don’t tell her that.” Arthur leaned back in his chair and watched while Merlin took in the office. There were more pictures on the wall, some clearly made by a child, some much more refined. There were stickers of kittens and dogs and fairies all over the filing cabinets and a dream catcher was hanging in the right corner of the window. The vertical blinds were green and yellow, giving a nice colour to the room. There were two black official looking chairs in front of the desk, but next to the filing cabinets was a small corner with three small plastic chairs in red, blue and orange. 

“You should get rid of the orange chair. It bites horribly with everything else,” said Merlin, slowly sinking into one of the black ones in front of Arthur’s desk.

“I can’t, that’s mine,” replied Arthur as if it should be obvious to Merlin. “Orange is the colour of the sun, open, friendly, warm. Does wonders for the psychology of young children. If I were to sit on either red or blue, I’d be dangerous and frightening, but orange makes me okay.” 

“You put a lot of thought into this,” said Merlin, half joking, half-serious.

“More my wife than me, but she tended to be right, so I listened to her.” 

There was an awkward pause as it sank in that Arthur had used the past instead of present tense.

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.”

“What happened?” 

Arthur sighed and Merlin immediately put up his hand. “No, don’t worry; you don’t have to tell me. It’s a standard question. I always ask what happened. I’m way too nosy.” 

“Car crash,” said Arthur, not looking at Merlin. “Two years ago.” 

Merlin nodded. “How old was your daughter?”

“Six. Lynn was six.”

“Can’t have been easy.” 

“It wasn’t.”

Arthur’s eyes flitted to a small picture frame right beside his computer and Merlin could guess that it was a picture of his wife. 

“What are you doing here anyway?”

Merlin shifted out of his reverie, looking slightly mischievous. “Well, you weren’t down in the assembly hall and I can’t just let pass that you missed out on the first aid training. I’m sure you have lots of things to do, but you’re the headmaster and should enjoy the same privileges that your teachers do. Namely, me as your instructor.” Merlin smiled brilliantly at Arthur; as if he was trying desperately to put himself in the best light possible. 

“Oh, having you as my instructor is a privilege then, is it?”

“Of course, it is.” 

Arthur leaned back in his chair, looking for all purposes like a businessman and not like a primary school headmaster whose office could rival any Disney Movie. “Right, what do you want me to do?”

Merlin rubbed his hands. “Well, first of all, take off that jacket. You can’t save lives being obstructed by that polyester monstrosity.” 

“My daughter picked this out,” said Arthur with something that resembled a pout and was incredibly adorable, but he took off the jacket without any real protest.

“Figures that you’d rely on your eight-year-old daughter for fashion advice.”

“Can we get on with this, so I can go home?” answered Arthur snidely. 

“Of course, sir. Right, let’s start with basics. Simple questions and answers.”

Arthur folded his arms and looked hard at Merlin. He had to admit the man was a bit like an intriguing piece of modern art where you weren’t quite sure what the meaning was and whether it could really be called art. “And I needed to take my jacket off for that?”

“I told you before I can’t work with stuck-up people. That jacket screams stuck-up. Now shush. First question: How do you stop a nose from bleeding?”

“Put the head forward slightly and pinch the end of the nose. I also like to put a wet cloth on the back of the neck to cool down the head and slow down the blood flow,” replied Arthur in a tone that suggested that he found this whole situation absolutely amusing and slightly ridiculous.

“Be careful with that. You might cause lasting brain damage.”

“Really?” said Arthur, looking slightly confused.

“No, Mr Witty. Do you talk to your students like that as well?”

Arthur shook his head. “You are a very privileged man, Mr. Emrys.”

“Thank you.” Merlin inclined his head in a mock bow. “If there’s a deep cut bleeding very strongly, what do you do?”

“Put pressure on it with a clean cloth, preferably a gauze.” 

“Nearly, put the finger under ice-cold water first. The cold slows the blood flow. Then put pressure on it.” 

“Duly noted.” 

“You are mocking me,” said Merlin, pouting. 

“Never.” Merlin was somewhat amazed how Arthur could keep such a straight face. 

“You know, I’m a person, I’ve got feelings too.”

Arthur relented. “Sorry, it’s just, I’ve done this. Many times. My last first aid course was two months ago. I do one at least once a year to keep abreast of things. Especially after Mithian died,” he added with a soft voice.

“Good resolution,” said Merlin, trying to lead away from the sad topic, trying to direct Arthur’s eyes back to him. “Last test then.”

 

There was a surge of excitement running through Arthur as Merlin got up from his chair. “Come on.” He motioned for Arthur to come around the desk. He stacked the plastic chairs and put them away into the other corner, before lying down on the floor in their place. Arthur raised his eyebrows, wondering what Merlin was planning. 

“I just had a heart attack because some guy in a suit insulted me cruelly. I’m lying on the floor, practically dead, definitely no heartbeat anymore because my fragile heart was shattered by gruesome comments and condescending attitude. I’m obviously not breathing anymore, either. How would this guy in a suit save me? If he wanted to, which I am doubting a little bit.”

“Alright, alright, shut up.” Arthur’s laugh rang through the room and made Merlin’s skin tingle with a strange excitement.

“Just, you know, don’t actually do the compressions. I’m not a dummy, I actually have a working heart in here,” said Merlin, trying to suppress a giddy laugh. 

Arthur nodded and got down on his knees next to Merlin, his thighs nearly touching Merlin’s arm. His whole body was aware of the closeness; one more centimetre and they would be touching. He didn’t quite understand why his heart was in his throat. He barely knew this man, after all. 

“You’re allowed to touch me, you know? I won’t burn you, despite what you may be thinking,” joked Merlin. 

Arthur coughed and stretched out his left hand. His fingers skidded lightly across the soft material of Merlin’s t-shirt. It wasn’t difficult finding the spot where Merlin’s ribs ended, though Arthur could also feel strong muscle beneath his touch. Slowly, Arthur put his entire left hand on Merlin’s chest. A quick, but almost quiet intake of breath from Merlin made Arthur blush. He tried to focus on his task, finding the right position to do CPR, but the rise and fall of Merlin’s chest was distracting. 

“That’s the position of the heart,” said Arthur quietly, his left hand lying flat over the steady beat. He leaned up and above Merlin, putting his right hand over his left, ready to press down.

“How...how many times?” asked Merlin with a hoarse voice. 

“30.”

Merlin nodded. “And then?” His voice was barely a whisper.

“And then...” Arthur moved his hands to Merlin’s head, placing one on the back of his neck. The other one cradled Merlin’s jaw line, ever so slightly. He gently pushed Merlin’s head back a bit, trying hard not to look at the exposed neck. Arthur carefully pinched Merlin’s nose closed and leaned over to perform mouth-to-mouth. He stopped just millimetres away from Merlin’s mouth.

“Twice,” he whispered.

“Correct.” Merlin could feel the heat radiating from Arthur, felt his breath on his skin. 

“And then back to CPR.” They paused in the moment for what felt like hours, neither going forwards, neither drawing back. Then Merlin leaned up ever so slightly and raised his arm to grab the side of that magnificent jaw and Arthur jerked up and away and Merlin cursed himself.

“Hm, right, did I do it correctly?” He asked, looking straight ahead at one of his daughter’s pictures. 

Merlin sat up, leaning on his elbows. “Yes, you did it right. You seem to know your stuff,” he said. “Nothing left for me. I should go.”

They both got up and Arthur walked back around the desk, still not looking at Merlin. 

“I’ll see you, then,” offered Merlin with his hand on the doorknob.

“Goodbye,” said Arthur, which was all the answer Merlin needed. He left the office, still cursing himself, with his butterflies all falling into deep holes.

 

On the way home, Morgana was nudging him in the shoulders, silently demanding information. Merlin only shook his head and looked out of the window of Gwaine’s small car. 

They dropped him off at his house and he slowly dragged himself up the stairs. He almost felt more exhausted than he did after a long watch with 4 fires. 

Kilgharrah jumped up and down and circled his legs as he entered the flat. 

“Yes, yes I’ll get you food.” He threw his keys on the kitchen table and went to get the sack full of food.

“I already gave him some,” called Will from his room. “He’s probably really just happy to see you.”

Merlin looked at Kilgharrah whose tail was still going mental, but his eyes were fixed on the sack of food. “I doubt it. How was Red watch last night?” He dropped the food sack back inside the kitchen cabinet and ignored Kilgharrah’s pitiful stare.

“Quiet, and stop talking about work all the time, will you?”

“Well, it’s literally the only life I’ve got. Work, work, work.” 

Merlin didn’t see Will’s head poking around the door with a confused expression, but simply slammed his door behind him and threw himself on his bed. He turned to look at the ceiling as if it could possibly explain to him what was going on. It remained silent. 

Merlin hadn’t had many relationships. Two, to be precise. One had ended with the death of one of his colleagues in a fire because Michael couldn’t bear the thought of losing Merlin like that. The other ended on a night out with Morgana during which he saw Thomas walking down arm in arm with another man and kissing him. Morgana nearly killed Thomas and then they both killed a gigantic box of chocolate ice cream. 

He’d had one proper one-night-stand and a few drunken fumbles, but apart from that he was pretty much a single man.

Will always tried to tell him that he wasn’t experimenting enough, not daring enough, and Merlin always replied that he didn’t want to test out anything with four fifths of the available guys being absolute dicks. It rarely felt right and he rarely felt comfortable. 

Which was why this situation was so incredibly frustrating. 

“You stupid man, Arthur Pendragon. I don’t even like you. Not a bit,” he said to the ceiling. He should have just ignored Arthur on their various meetings, because it was obvious that this wasn’t going to lead anywhere. There was a stick up the arse or too many issues or who knew what else Arthur Pendragon’s problem was. 

Hell, Merlin didn’t even know for sure whether the guy was gay. His most adorable daughter was definitely speaking against that. He might still be bi, but why did he have to make things so complicated? Why couldn’t he just say: ‘Hey Merlin, you’re cute, you saved my school and I want to show you my gratefulness by taking you out to dinner. How about it?’ and Merlin would gladly say yes. 

He grabbed his pillow, pulled it over his head and screamed into it. 

“Please don’t kill yourself with a pillow!” 

The pillow landed in Will’s stomach who raised an eyebrow at Merlin from his position by the door.

“You’ve forgotten about the whole knocking thing again, haven’t you?” said Merlin snidely.

“No, I haven’t. I mistook your scream for a ‘come on in, Will and save me’, but I might have been mistaken.”

Merlin sighed and held out his hand for his pillow. “I wasn’t trying to kill myself, and by all means, come on in. At least your report will shut up Morgana until tomorrow. And don’t try to deny that she called you to check up on me. She was throwing me looks.”

“The looks?”

“The looks.”

Will placed the pillow on Merlin’s stomach and took a seat in the spinning chair by the desk. He spun around once and hit his knee on the side of the desk.

“That’s dangerous,” he moaned. 

“Only if you’re a 25-year-old child.” 

“You want to talk about it, whatever it is, or do you want to watch Lord of the Rings or Saw or something? Until I have to go to work in...30 minutes?”

Merlin sat up. “I think I want to watch gay porn and wank all night.”

“Don’t let me keep ya. I’ll call back Morgana and tell her you’re right as rain,” said Will, fake saluting and grinning, before marching out of the room. 

A minute later, Merlin heard a quiet ‘Go pester him tomorrow, I’m really not that good at these sort of things, Morgana’ from the kitchen and quietly groaned. His best friend was not going to let this rest. She knew him too well and she also knew what watching gay porn and wanking all night meant. 

 

Sure enough, he hadn’t even properly sat down in Gwaine’s car the next morning, before Morgana began bearing down on him.

“Tell me everything and in great detail and no bloody excuses. You were supposed to nail the deal yesterday in that office. What happened?”

Merlin stared at her without blinking.

“Come on, Ems, I gave you a day recuperation time, you’ve got to tell me now.”

“Are you pouting? Is she pouting?”

Gwaine quickly averted his eyes from the road to look at Morgana in the rear-view mirror. “Yeah mate, she’s pouting.”

Merlin slapped her arm. “Stop it. It simply didn’t go so well, that’s all.” He crossed his arms over his chest as if that would conclude the discussion.

“But why?” asked Morgana, her lower lip still pushed out over her upper lip. 

“Yes, Merlin but why?” echoed Gwaine, also pushing his lower lip out.

“Great, now Gwaine’s pouting too. You see what you do with your nosiness?” Merlin rolled his eyes at the two of them as they continued with their pouting match.

“He pulled away at the last minute and went all stiff and that.”

“I don’t know much about gay relationships but I always thought ‘all stiff’ was a good thing.” 

Morgana leaned forward to ruffle through Gwaine’s hair. “Except you’re the one who’s always thinking about sex, not Merlin.”

“Shame.”

“I know, but nothing we can do about that.”

“Now I’m going to pout, you’re talking like I don’t like sex,” complained Merlin. They were just driving up to the school and a few children were waiting by the school gates. Gwen was there with them, but her eyes weren’t so much focused on the children as they were on Lance’s features as they talked to each other. 

“See Lance is doing it right, methinks,” pointed out Gwaine helpfully.

“Well, Merlin, you once said that a good conversation is better than any sex, so it’s kind of your own fault that you got this reputation for not liking sex,” said Morgana, turning towards him as Gwaine shut down the engine of the car. “Okay, maybe you should try again today.”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t get the feeling that he was very eager to repeat any interaction we’ve ever had. Come on let’s go. They’re all rushing inside.” And with that the conversation was over.

 

However, Morgana wouldn’t be Morgana if she didn’t throw significant glances at Merlin or raise her eyebrows every so often. 

They were doing their usual routine for school events, explaining things to the children, doing practical exercises of fire training or letting them draw firemen or solve riddles about fire-hazard rules. It was an easy way to show them what they had to do in case of a fire. 

One of Merlin’s favourite exercises was putting a stuffed kitten high up on a ledge and for the children to find a way to get it down with the means they had. It always ended with Gwaine getting down the kitten by stepping on a stool and pretending that the kitten could speak to him. The children were eating it up, yelling and cheering. Merlin winced slightly as a few children squeaked shrilly as Gwaine said they could keep the kitten for the school.

“Earplugs.”

Merlin whipped around. There he was, as handsome and nicely dressed as ever, a dark green tie a nice touch of colour on the white shirt with the black suit. 

“What?” Merlin winced at his own rudeness. He’d never been very eloquent when surprised, worse so when the surprise possibly wasn’t entirely positive. 

“Earplugs. One night a week and it helps you deal with this sort of thing a lot easier,” said Arthur, pointing at the children. 

“Earplugs are dangerous. You can’t hear other people scream or knock on the door and might not wake up in time to escape the smoke and flames. Don’t sleep with them,” replied Merlin before going off in the other direction. Morgana shot him a dark look across the room and mouthed ‘you idiot’ at him. He shook his head ever so slightly, telling her to leave it. Not that she ever would. 

Arthur didn’t follow him but he did approach him again later while Merlin was standing at the coffee station stirring his cup. 

“So, um, thank you, again, for doing this. It’s really appreciated.”

Merlin suppressed one of those heavy sighs that meant that you were incredibly annoyed. To be fair, he wasn’t really annoyed anyway, just too tired to deal with any games and shenanigans that didn’t involve kissing Arthur senseless. Merlin shook his head to clear it of that image. 

“No problem, really, we do it all the time. We don’t get paid for it, officially, but it’s still part of our job.” Merlin tried to politely nod and turn away, but Arthur almost reached out to him to stop him.

“Yeah, I know. It’s just I would have never thought about actually inviting firefighters to the school. All we’ve ever been told was to hold an assembly about the fire rules and make sure the children knew that they had to form lines and walk out of the building. I never actually thought about something like this.” Arthur let his eyes wander over the scattered children, trying themselves out on various exercises and squealing with joy. “So thanks.” 

“Yeah, no, it’s fine.”

“You like the coffee? Gwen made it. She’s really rather good at it. And my secretary hates her for it, ‘cause Gwen comes in every morning to make a cup for me and then we talk, you know.”

Merlin sipped the coffee and he had to admit, it was pretty good. Definitely not instant coffee and definitely not cheap ground coffee. “Is she like your best friend or something?”

Arthur thought for a moment before replying: “I guess so. She used to be my wife’s best friend from school. But I guess she’s mine now. I don’t have that many friends anyway.” 

“Friends are overrated sometimes. Look at Morgana, she can be really horrible.” Of course, in the moment that Merlin was trying to showcase Morgana’s evil nature she was sitting with a little girl in her lap helping her colour in a picture fireman. The fireman looked alarmingly green. 

“I can see how horrible she is,” laughed Arthur. He looked at his watch and grimaced. “Right, I’ve got to go. There are some phone calls to be made. I, um, I’ll see you. Merlin.” He waved slightly which looked out of place with his suit and tie. They should have been shaking hands. 

“Bye,” answered Merlin, completely dumbfounded by what had just happened. “What the-?”

“If you say ‘fuck’ I’m allowed to slap you. School rules. That’s what the big hunk named Percy over there told me,” said Gwaine from behind Merlin, pouring some coffee in a cup. Merlin hit him in the arm with his fist.

“Ouch.”

“You said the ‘f’ word. Your own fault,” replied Merlin, walking over to a group of children who were struggling with the fake fire hydrant. 

 

“Is he brooding?”

“I think he’s brooding.”

“I can see the dark rain clouds over his head.”

“Question is: What is he brooding about?”

“Fiver it’s work-related.” 

“You gotta be more specific than that, Lance.” 

“Okay, related to our pay-checks.”

“Isn’t Gaius doing those?”

“Shut up, Will. You’re not in on this. What are you even doing here? You’re not on our watch, are you?”

“No, Merlin forgot the carrots for lunch. But man, I wish I could be. All this jumping around watches to help out wherever is getting on my nerves.”

“We’ve been trying to get rid of Gwaine for years, but he just won’t budge.”

“Oi.”

“Right,” said Lance, turning them all around so that they were huddled in a tight circle. “I say he’s brooding over pay-checks.”

“New regulations,” said Gwaine. “Which will be a bugger if Merlin already doesn’t like them.” 

“Some broken equipment.”

Will sighed and stood up straight. “It’s a guy.”

Everyone else straightened up as well, throwing glances at Merlin, which weren’t quite as surreptitious as they might have imagined. “Really?”

“Really,” said Morgana as she walked past. She grabbed Will’s arm and pulled him towards the exit. “Thanks Will and please don’t go spreading rumours around our watch. Especially when you’re not on it.”

“A, I think it stops being a rumour when it’s actually true, and B, see how I’m treated when I’m not an official part of any team.”

“Well, talking about your watch manager’s personal matters certainly isn’t going to recommend you, is it?” hissed Morgana. Will took the warning and left without another word and Morgana rounded on the others.

“Go back to whatever else it was you were doing,” she said and stalked past them.

Gwaine raised his eyebrows. “Merlin’s brooding and his fag hag is bitch-protecting him. Who’s bitten their arses?” 

“I heard that,” yelled Morgana.

“Of course you did,” answered Gwaine and blew her a kiss across the room. 

 

Morgana knocked gently at the closed door. Merlin’s ‘come in’ sounded tired. “Hey. Here, Will brought the carrots. You better start cooking soon, or the hungry wolves will tear you apart.”

“Yeah.”

“Coffee after work?”

Merlin looked up from his papers. “Not tonight, Morgana.”

“How about you just confront him?” 

“Morgana, not now, I got this stuff-” The siren blared into life, ringing in their ears. The red lights went on all around the station and over the loudspeakers they heard the instruction.

“2-4 in a factory, Newport Road, possible CiD.”

Merlin and Morgana raced out of the office, slid down the pole one after the other. Gwaine, Lance and Owain were already suited up and starting the pump while the other team consisting of Gilli, Julius, Helen, Edwin and Helios were already driving out.

“Come on,” yelled Gwaine. 

“You know, the way from my office to down here is really way too far. I’m always the slowest,” complained Merlin as he climbed onto the pump. Morgana jumped in after him and yelled ‘GO!’.

“Maybe you’re just too fat and not fast enough, Merlin,” said Gwaine as he steered the pump out of the gate, switching on the siren. “Why am I the driver? Owain, that’s your job,” he yelled over the noise.

“You just jumped into the driver’s seat, mate, I thought you would know what you were doing.”

“Shut up you two.” Merlin grabbed the radio. “Alpha- Echo, 52 here, call confirmed, two pumps dispatched. Any progress? How many pumps are out?”

“52, Alpha-Echo, 8 called in, 4 more requested.” 

They all looked at each other. “Shit just got hot,” said Gwaine. “Fuck you, you bloody buggering blind bastard, get out of the fucking way. You think I can just magic my way through the traffic. Jesus fucking Christ.”

Morgana burst out laughing. “Got a liking for alliterations, Gwaine?”

“I mean, come on, that guy was an idiot.”

“Shush. 52-Bravo. It’s big. Prepare yourselves.” Merlin put the radio back down. “No more jokes guys. And Owain, next time, punch Gwaine out of the way if you must. His driving is horrible.”

“Oi.”

“Shut it.”

  
**~oOo~**   


Arthur heard a small protest from Vivian, which sounded more like a guinea-pig than a woman in shock, before the door was swung open and he was confronted by an agitated Merlin, who closed the door a little louder than necessary.

“Merl-“

“Okay, what the fuck is going on?” 

Arthur straightened up and put his pen down on the form he was about to sign off on. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what the fuck is going on between us? What is your plan? What do you want from me? ‘Cause you should know one thing, Arthur, I’m not one to piss about. I don’t go shirking about, taking my dear old time to decide. I don’t flirt and then suddenly change my mind. I don’t say, I don’t know unless it’s a question about physics down at the pub quiz. I am the sort of person who runs into a burning factory building when everybody else runs out, like I did on Saturday. I’m pretty straightforward. So, please, for my sake, tell me what you want from me.” Merlin’s eyes pierced Arthur.

“It’s not that easy for me, Merlin. There are things that I have to consider.”

“Then at least do me the courtesy of telling me which things.” Merlin had his arms folded in front of his chest now; reminding Arthur of a defensive child trying it’s best to prove that it hadn’t thrown the ball that had smashed the window. 

“I...okay, well.” Arthur coughed, but apart from that didn’t let on how uncomfortable he was about this confrontation. His eyes flickered to the picture of his wife, before he looked Merlin in the eye stoically. 

“It’s Mithian. You know, they said: if the firemen had gotten to her just a few minutes earlier she probably would have survived.” 

Merlin had to look away for a second. He sounded angry when he finally replied. “Well, we’re finally getting to the bottom of your unwillingness. You think all firemen are shit and they should have done everything in their power to save your wife. Well, fuck you and everybody else who doesn’t have a bloody clue about this job.” 

He paced up and down the office, ruffling his hair in his anger. “Life is unfair and sometimes stupid things happen. Like a pump truck being stuck in traffic, because the bloody idiots don’t move out of the way, or the driver taking the wrong turn and maybe realising 30 seconds too late for them to be there on time. Firefighters breaking into a house through the wrong door, the wrong side of the building to rescue the person trapped inside in time. If we’d gone in through the west entrance instead of the east entrance that pregnant woman might still be alive. If Joey had paid more attention to what he was doing, he wouldn’t have walked straight to his death. Human errors, misfortune, technical difficulties. Shit like that happens. Don’t blame us for trying to do everything we can.” Merlin had difficulty controlling his voice so that it didn’t rise to a shout, but he knew by the cough from next door that he hadn’t succeeded. 

He placed both hands on the table, facing a dumbfounded Arthur straight on. “I’m sorry, believe me, I am. But stop blaming some poor men for not being quick enough when what they probably did was to race down the M4 at 200 miles per hour. Men, who would have cursed and screamed and would have had a shitty next few days, because they couldn’t save your wife. Forget about them and move on. Bloody hell, enjoy life a little. You of all people should know that life is short, bloody hell.” 

“You need to stop saying, bloody hell,” was Arthur’s reply to that. Merlin flipped around and checked the door. Closed. 

“Why? There aren’t any kids around?”

“I know, but it makes me laugh and I can’t really take you seriously when you do that. I don’t know. Sorry.” Arthur looked at his hands sheepishly. 

“Okay, fine. I’m ridiculous. You know what? I could live with that. But I can’t live with your anger and your guilt. So either stop it or tell me to go back to my own life.” 

“It’s not just that though,” sighed Arthur. “I lost my wife, I haven’t dated for ages and I think I’ve forgotten how to.”

Merlin looked at him, intrigued. “Have you ever dated a guy?”

Arthur raised his head. “Come to my place tonight. At eight.” Arthur reached for a piece of paper and scribbled down an address. “I’m not going to be able to get a babysitter on such short notice. So, eight, my place, yeah?”

Merlin stared at him, his breath stuck on its way out. He let it go after a few seconds and a smile tugged at his lips. “I guess that’s an answer, too.” He hesitated. “Okay.” Grabbing the paper, he folded it carefully.

“Okay.” A few seconds of silence passed and then Arthur pointed down to the form. “I, um, have some work to do.” 

Merlin nodded and left without another word, but with more door slamming, and Arthur was sure he’d only done that to annoy Vivian. Judging by the cold silence Arthur felt whenever he passed her, Merlin had succeeded. 

 

Merlin rang the doorbell at 20 minutes to 9. He heard a loud clunk and a few hurried steps. Arthur unhinged the chain and opened the door a few inches. Merlin smiled sheepishly at him.

“Hi, sorry, I was called into the station for some administrative work. Didn’t think it would take this long.”

Arthur nodded and opened the door further to let Merlin in. “But nothing serious?”

“No.”

As Arthur closed the door, Merlin’s eyes immediately fell on the drawings all over it. “Lynn?”

“Yeah, she does them all the time. Um, you can hang up your jacket here. Do you want something to drink?”

“Do you have tea? I’m a little cold,” said Merlin, still looking at Lynn’s drawings.

Arthur laughed. “So many jokes right there.” 

Merlin rolled his eyes at him and finally hung up his jacket. “I know them all. And just so you know, I get cold very easily, because I’m exposed to immense heat on a regular basis,” he said a little too defensively.

The next few minutes passed in silence as Arthur prepared the tea in the kitchen and Merlin went around the flat, investigating. There was a closed door with a myriad of animals stuck to it and the name ‘Lynn’ written in beautiful green and black letters in the middle. To the left was a small sign that read: _Only mommy is allowed in without knocking._

Next to Lynn’s room was the big bathroom with little drawings and what some people might call graffiti all over the walls. Most messages were for her mother, but here and there Lynn’s love for animals shone through and cats chased birds that were far out of their reach and elephants and giraffes walked on the side of the bathtub. The bathroom smelled freshly cleaned and Merlin couldn’t help but smile.

Once in the living room, Merlin was a hundred percent sure that Arthur had given Lynn free reign concerning the decoration of the flat. Again, her pictures were all over the walls and her small Barbie’s and action figures had been positioned as if they were the most valuable vase or ornament in the world. 

Merlin picked up the Doctor from the sideboard and examined him. 

“It’s her favourite. Doctor Who,” said Arthur, placing two cups and the teapot on the table.

“Me too. It’s been my favourite show ever since I was little. I was so happy when it came back in 2005.” 

“I hope Ten is your favourite Doctor, otherwise you and Lynn are going to have a huge problem.” Arthur smiled nervously. Merlin found the shy flicker of Arthur’s eyes directed at him enticing and according to Will all he would have to do now was to move forwards two steps and actually kiss Arthur. At least that’s what a normal dating situation might possibly ask for. This wasn’t it, so instead Merlin put down the Tenth Doctor and slowly moved towards the empty end of the sofa. It clearly was Lynn’s end, because as Merlin sat down he felt sharp stabs in several places and an investigating hand produced three different toys from underneath the sofa cushions. 

“Sorry about that. Sometimes I don’t quite know what she does with her toys. She’s stopped leaving them in the middle of the hallway.”

“Well, that’s at least something,” consented Merlin, grinning.

“But only after I tripped over one of them and sprained my ankle.” 

Once all the toys had been removed, Merlin pulled his legs up onto the couch and accepted a steaming mug from Arthur. Merlin looked at Arthur with a half-smile, trying to be open but not pushy. He’d realised that his tantrum in Arthur’s office this morning had not been the best way to go about things, not with Arthur having to work through so many painful thoughts. So taking it slow and letting Arthur take the next step it was. 

_Unless he’s taking hours._

Arthur shifted, breathing in deeply and Merlin raised his eyebrows expectantly. “So, um, flat fire-proof enough for you?”

“Definitely. I even have the same smoke-alarms in my flat. They’re really good.” 

“Yeah, I remember perusing a lot of articles to find the best one.”

“I like your flat, fire-proof and all,” said Merlin, when Arthur wasn’t providing any additional information. “Lynn’s very creative isn’t she?”

Even ‘very creative’ seemed to be an understatement. The flat was practically exploding with colour and pictures. It must be the only thing she did when she came home from school. 

“She is. I think at some point she had five different imaginary friends. Now it’s just her mother and the Doctor, I think. And she just keeps drawing whenever she can, as you can see.” 

“Is it hard seeing all this stuff about her mother?” As usual, the question was out before Merlin could stop himself. He’d never properly learned to put a filter between his brain and his mouth. Wide-eyed, he waved at Arthur with one of his hands. “Again, please forget I asked that. You don’t have to answer.”

“Yes.” Arthur was staring down at his mug and Merlin could have kicked himself. This was quite probably not how Arthur had imagined this going. Hell, it wasn’t how he himself had imagined it going. 

“Okay,” whispered Merlin, because he didn’t know what else he could say.

Arthur looked at him. His eyes were sad, but there was also a sign of some deep-rooted understanding of what love really is. “But it would hurt more to deny Lynn her way of grieving.”

“You seem to be a pretty good dad.”

“I’d like to think so, Merlin. Thank you.” Arthur held his chin up high and Merlin grinned at him. “More tea?” Merlin held out his mug in response. Their fingers brushed slightly as Arthur took it to refill. Merlin felt a warm tingling spread up his arm and he could have sworn Arthur made sure that their fingers touched again as he handed the mug back, just to reinforce that tingling. 

“How did you become Captain-“

“Station manager is the proper term,” corrected Merlin.

“Okay, how did you become station manager at, um, at your age?”

“27.”

“At 27.” Arthur fiddled with one of the pillows, embarrassed. “31, by the way.”

“Hello 31, I’m 27, though this 27 is not a station manager. I’m watch manager and basically the boss of the two teams on that watch. Though that was all just more luck, because the former watch manager fell ill and then decided to retire early. And well, connections helped too.”

“What kind of connections?”

“My father.”

Arthur’s eyebrows rose slightly in surprise and put the pillow back to its rightful place. “I chose the opposite of what my father does and you chose the same thing. My father’s a businessman, well, I guess I’m one too. But in his business there were too many people getting screwed over. I wanted to do something good and worthwhile and not just profitable.”

It was Merlin’s turn to be surprised. It was the first time Arthur had willingly given him some information without being asked first. He couldn’t help but smile a little smugly. “I like that.” 

“Being the good Samaritan and wanting to help people? Yeah, figured. You being a firefighter and all that,” said Arthur, grinning.

Merlin leaned forward a little. “I like you, particularly when you’re trying to be witty.” 

Arthur turned so that he was facing Merlin. “I’m not just trying to be witty, I am witty. Are you sure you know what witty actually means or do I have to teach you?”

“And now he’s getting sassy,” said Merlin directed at no one in particular. 

“You were practically asking for i-“

“Can I kiss you?” Again with the brain mouth filter, but this time Merlin didn’t care. He folded his legs differently to make room for Arthur to reach him, if he wanted to. There was a nervous tension, but judging by Arthur’s position Merlin was sure it was a positive tension. Arthur took Merlin’s mug and put it on the table alongside his. 

All the butterflies that had accumulated over the last weeks and grown bigger and bigger with every meeting, were now flapping their wings excitedly throughout Merlin’s entire body. Arthur shifted and smiled shyly. Merlin bit his lip, letting it slide back slowly. Arthur’s eyes followed the movement. 

The first touch was timid and careful and the thought that Arthur maybe hadn’t ever dated a man before invaded Merlin’s mind. He was about to pull back and make sure this was alright when Arthur’s hand came to pull him closer and all the butterflies very happily continued buzzing about. Arthur tasted of tea and sugar mostly, but when their tongues touched, Merlin could also make out a trace of curry and he smiled involuntarily. 

“What are you smiling at?” asked Arthur, drawing a quiet whimpering sound from Merlin as he pulled away.

“Nothing,” answered Merlin cheekily. “And please don’t stop on my account. Usually when I smile that means I like something, but maybe that’s different where you’re from.” 

“Very funny.” 

“Yeah, I thought s-“ Before Merlin could finish his sentence, Arthur smashed their lips together again. If the first kiss was timid then this one was rough and needy and Merlin felt a warm heat coiling in his stomach. They grabbed each other, holding on, barely breathing and at the same time breathing each other in. Until Merlin moaned quietly...

“What is it?” he asked as Arthur suddenly pulled back and looked at him with wide eyes.

“I, nothing, sorry.” Arthur scratched the back of his head. “It’s just, I haven’t really done this in a while. Making out like teenagers. I just realised how strange it feels.”

“Like being a teenager again,” said Merlin, raising one of his eyebrows in playful mockery. A pillow landed in his face and he laughed loudly, immediately infecting Arthur with it. They fell into comfortable silence, sitting closer than before but not touching. Arthur stared ahead, eyes fixed on nothing in particular, and Merlin watched him. He tried to burn that profile on to his retinas so as to never forget it. 

“We’ll take it slow, yeah? Your pace, not mine. I’ll try at least,” offered Merlin. When Arthur finally looked at him it was with a heart-gripping hope tinged with a flare of sadness. It only made Merlin like this man even more.

“Thanks.” He shifted awkwardly, his knee touching Merlin’s. “I kind of enjoyed kissing you.” 

Merlin smiled, the comfortable warmth spreading through his body again and the butterflies which had dropped in wariness at Arthur’s distance, took flight again. “Then we should definitely do some more of that.” 

Arthur smiled back and leaned back in.

  


**~oOo~**  


Merlin moaned and rolled over on his side. The sunlight was tickling his eyelids, trying to get them to open. His hand flopped over the side of the bed and immediately a tongue came up to lick it. He groaned and opened his eyes.

“Kilgharrah, I’m very sure that I closed the door on you last night. How did you get in?” The only answer he received was continuous licking and the thump thump of a tail banging on the carpet. “Oh well, I suppose as a fire-dog it’s a good thing that you can open doors. Just, don’t do it with my door. Bad dog. Um, merde chien. No, that’s shit dog, you’re not a shit dog. What’s ‘bad’ in French? Get me the dictionary.” 

There was a loud knock at the door, and Merlin’s brain told him that that was what had woken him up in the first place. He looked at the clock and groaned.

“You know, I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to bark when there’s someone at the door, Kilgharrah, and scare them away preferably,” said Merlin, as he scrambled his way out of bed. He wiped his wet arm on Kilgharrah’s fur. 

He opened the front door and an open paper bag full of fresh and still warm breakfast buns was held up in his face. 

“Smell them and then tell me how absolutely fabulous I am for getting them from our favourite bakery and then tell me everything that happened after you left the station with that determined face of yours yesterday morning,” said a very enthusiastic Morgana.

“It’s 8 in the morning. It’s our first day off. What the bloody fuck are you doing here this early?”

She pushed past him, completely unfazed, and straight on towards the kitchen. “I couldn’t sleep anymore and I tried reality TV for about an hour, but honestly, at the moment your life is just a teeny bit more exciting. So, tell me. What happened?” 

At the thought of the previous day and evening, Merlin’s face split into a grin.

Morgana punched the air. “Yes, I knew it. Did you kiss? And where did you hide the butter?” she asked, her head in the fridge.

“Top shelf behind the huge mountain of Tofu. Don’t know when I’m supposed to eat all that.”

“Merlin! Priorities!”

“I’m grinning like an idiot, aren’t I? What do you think?” He caught the butter as Morgana threw it at him. 

“Who first?”

“I asked, but he leaned in first,” said Merlin, now spreading butter over one half of a bun. He bit into it with a satisfied moan. “These are so good.”

“You asked?”

“Believe it or not my dear Morgana, I don’t always dive in head first without asking.” 

Morgana looked at him over her buttered bun, as if something very important had just dawned on her. “I like him, have I said that before?”

Merlin smiled at her. “I think you have.” He took up the butter knife and pointed it at her threateningly. “That still doesn’t excuse you showing up here at 8 in the morning. And no, we did not have a wild night of hot sex that’s made me so tired, before you ask.”

“Shame.”

 

“Gwen?”

“Yes, I’ll be your babysitter for Friday.”

“Wha-what?” spluttered Arthur, nearly spilling the coffee that he’d just poured himself. “How do you-?”

“I watched you arrive this morning. Your smile and the slight spring in your step spoke a _million_ words,” she said happily. “Besides, Vivian told practically everyone about the shouting match you had with Merlin and the invitation he accepted. It was really rather easy to guess from there.” 

Now Arthur wasn’t really confused anymore by the goofy grin Percy had given him in the morning or the clap on the shoulders from Leon. The only thing that was missing now was for the guys to take him out to the pub around the corner to celebrate that he’d finally got some action. He suddenly felt very self-conscious. 

“So, if you want to go out with the very adorable Merlin, I’ll take Lynn. Friday, Saturday, doesn’t matter.” 

Arthur kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you. And I’m going to need to look for a new secretary. One that’s less gossipy.”

Gwen laughed. “You know, it might just be in their job description. _Passing on every little detail, I can find out about my boss. The more humiliating, the better._ Maybe just reprimand her and give her another chance, like you’ve done for the past 5 years?”

“Maybe.” 

He waved at Gwen and made his way back from the staff room to his office, passing Vivian on the way. He tried to look as grumpy as possible and even scowled at her for good measure, which earned him a very confused look. 

He shut himself in his office, closed the blinds out to the hallway and got out his mobile phone. 

 

Arthur 9:35: Don’t know whether you’re awake already? That’s why text. What are you doing Friday?

Merlin 9:37: Going on a date with you. Why do you ask?

Arthur 9:40: Just wanted to confirm that I’ll pick you up at 7. Address?

Merlin 9:41: 17 Potter Road. And yes, again, I’ve heard all possible jokes. And make it 8, got day-watch.

Arthur 9:45: You make it very difficult to ridicule you. See you Friday at 8.

Merlin 9:47: I’m sure you’ve noticed how I’m a firefighter. Ridiculing each other is part of the profession. 

Merlin 9:47: Years of experience have made me tough*g*.

Merlin 9:48: Looking forward to Friday ;-)

Arthur 9:50: Me too

 

Arthur put the phone away after the last message, or else he’d be messaging back and forth with Merlin all day long, instead of doing actual work. Once he shut his brain down and stopped worrying and over-thinking things, it just seemed so easy to talk to Merlin. Easier than it had been with Mithian at the beginning. He’d met her at a party and the evening had ended with him being slapped for something his then best friend Thomas had done. All Arthur had wanted to do after that was apologise for Thomas’ stupid joke about how all the girls at that party were just sexually frustrated nuns too afraid to give out. He wanted to clarify that he didn’t think that way, save his dignity so to say. With that apology, however, he had impressed Mithian so much she’d asked him out the following day. 

The first few dates were slightly awkward with too long silences and Arthur had often wondered how they had managed to persist with going out with each other. He’d just been waiting for Mithian to say one of the typical excuses. _You’re not my type. We didn’t click. We can still be friends._ However, they never came. Instead, on their sixth date they suddenly clicked and from then on it was mostly amazing. For nine years. Lynn hadn’t been planned, but Mithian’s mother had said that that was always true with the best things in life. Just the way it hadn’t seemed as if he and Mithian would actually become a proper couple at first. 

The thing was, however, with Merlin it apparently didn’t have to click, it just was.

  


**~oOo~**  


They were slowly walking along the huge glass windows, the eerie blue shine of the water making everything seem quieter. Every now and then, the shadow of a shark or stingray fell across one of their faces

Lynn had raced ahead, chasing one of the small clown fish and trying to get it to come out of its anemone by begging it with gentle whispers. 

Arthur and Merlin were walking at a slow pace past the glass, stopping here and there to watch the graceful animals. Neither of them was really looking though. Arthur felt nervous, more so than he had the night before on their first official date. He’d shown up in front of Merlin’s door right on time, but Merlin was nowhere near ready since his old landlady from downstairs had asked him to do some work around the flat for her. 

“And well, you know how it is. Once you’re in the lion’s den you get tea and biscuits and she starts talking about her husband and her children and asks you about your love life as if she’s expecting you to give her some more grandchildren to add to the 34 she’s already got and whose names you all know. I usually don’t get out of there in under an hour. This is a record. Just for you.” 

So, Arthur sat down on the sofa, was immediately jumped on by Kilgharrah who tried to lick or eat his face, Arthur wasn’t quite sure, and waited for 15 minutes, taking in the organised chaos that was the living room. 

“You will find dog hairs all over this suit for weeks now,” said Merlin after he’d emerged, leaning over the back of the sofa from behind. His lean body was dressed in black trousers, a white shirt and a dark green jacket and his hair was a little bit less wild than usual. Ten years earlier, they probably wouldn’t have made it to the restaurant, instead Arthur would have shoved Kilgharrah off the couch unceremoniously and dragged Merlin down to him in his place. 

It wasn’t ten years earlier and they made their way to Arthur’s car and to the restaurant. Arthur knew it was the boring classic, but he’d felt that talking to Merlin was more important than anything else and a quiet meal in a quiet restaurant was the best way to do so. 

And it was easy, almost too easy. By the end of the night it almost scared Arthur just how easy it was with Merlin. He didn’t even hesitate for a second when Merlin asked him out for another date the next day. It only seemed easier still when Merlin said: “And Lynn’s the special guest. Don’t forget to bring her, or I’ll look like a fool.” 

They kissed, not much, it was more a goodbye kiss and a ‘see you tomorrow’ than a proper snog, but it was the right kind of ending to a very good first date; including their last exchange of ‘Lynn is very demanding, so you better bring it’ and ‘Oh, I will bring it don’t worry’.

 

Merlin couldn’t have made a more perfect choice.

“You know, Lynn means water or waterfall. So yeah, she loves the aquarium. Don’t know how often she’s already dragged me in here,” said Arthur, watching his daughter closely with a content smile. 

“See, I knew that. That’s why I picked it,” replied Merlin, winking at Arthur.

“You really didn’t have to do this, Merlin.” Arthur’s hands were still fiddling with the entrance tickets that Merlin had paid for. 

“Of course I had to. She’s your daughter, Arthur. I need her on my side.”

“Well, it looks like it’s working,” laughed Arthur, just as Lynn excitedly waved them over. She stood up and looked at her father earnestly. 

“We have to watch ‘Finding Nemo’ at home. With Merlin.” 

“And Chinese food with chocolate cake as dessert,” said Merlin, holding his hand out to Lynn for a high-five. 

“Don’t you have to work tonight, though?” asked Arthur, his face an interesting mix of smile and frown. 

“Yeah, but if we start eating slightly before six, I’ll be fine. Probably won’t find Nemo though.”

“That’s okay, his father finds him at the end of the film. You want to see the turtles, Merlin?” asked Lynn, but she’d already dragged him away from Arthur before he could even answer. Arthur followed slowly and when he got closer, he sat down on a bench nearby and watched them. Lynn’s face was shining with excitement and Merlin looked absolutely comfortable right next to her. Arthur didn’t want to disturb that picture.

  


“Are you alright?” asked Merlin quietly on the way to the tube.

“Yeah, why?”

“You were a little withdrawn from the action for the last hour and a half.” Merlin bit his lip, looking at Arthur with just a little bit of worry.

“It’s just...it was nice not being Lynn’s main focus for once,” said Arthur. “I mean...god that sounds much worse than it did in my head. What I mean is, it is nice to watch her with someone else, someone she likes and someone I like, seeing her be a normal kid and all that. I just really felt like watching you two rather than being part of the image, for once. That’s probably not any clearer.”

“No, I understand what you mean.” 

Merlin’s arm ever so slightly brushed alongside Arthur’s and Arthur understood it for the message it was and smiled back. 

An offer, but not a push.

  
**~oOo~**  



	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thing with putting out fires in schools was: they often led to biscuits and squiggly paintings of happy firemen. The fire in Albion primary school, however, leads Merlin to Arthur and his daughter Lynn; to more biscuits, but also pancakes; to fun and butterflies; and to a whole new world of letting someone in; ready or not.
> 
> Careful, don't burn your fingers!

  
**~oOo~**   


The next morning, Arthur was woken up by the strong smell of coffee and some quiet rummaging in the kitchen. He heard the distinct sound of his daughter giggling. Putting on some boxers and a shirt as well as a dressing gown, he opened the bedroom door and was greeted by a sight that at some point in his life he had never expected to see again. His daughter being treated to perfectly thin and golden looking pancakes with lemon by someone who was simply shining at her with happiness and comfort. Someone other than himself that is. He paused at the door and tried to burn that image into his head.

 

  


 

Merlin was wearing a blue fire brigade t-shirt that looked like he’d owned it for twenty years, plus some washed out jeans that seemed to be a bit too big for him. His hair was messed up and there was a dark smudge just under his jaw on the left side of his face that he must have missed when he’d showered after work.

“Hey, how do we deserve this pleasure?”

“Lynn called me and said she desperately wanted pancakes and you wouldn’t make any. She was even crying. How was I supposed to say ‘no’?” said Merlin with a big grin on his face, while Lynn giggled behind her hands. Merlin winked at her. “Pancakes?” He held the pan out for Arthur to see, but Arthur shook his head. His daughter should have all of them.

“No, I’ll just have some toast and a coffee.”

“Aw, come on, daddy. You have to eat one,” claimed Lynn, a long piece of the soft pastry dangling from her small fork.

“Yes, Arthur, you have to at least try them. By the way, my pancakes are brilliant, you wouldn’t want to miss out on them,” said Merlin.

“But it’s not pancake day,” suggested Arthur.

“Daddy,” said his daughter with such an exasperated tone, that he was sure whatever she was about to say next, she had just been told herself by Merlin. “You can eat pancakes more oftener than just once a year.”

“More often,” corrected Merlin with a smile.

“More often.” Lynn nodded fiercely and Arthur had to suppress a laugh, in order not to insult his daughter.

Arthur’s eyes wandered between his daughter and Merlin, who both looked at him like two kicked puppies, until he finally consented.

“Mind you, they would be even more spectacular if you had actual lemons and not this cheap lemon juice sh..shtuff.”

Lynn giggled and Arthur rolled his eyes at Merlin. “I don’t use lemons that often and I only make pancakes on pancake day.”

“Shame. On. You.” Merlin put a pancake on Arthur’s plate and handed him the lemon juice.

“So, Lynn-Lynn? Did you put my notebook back where it’s supposed to be after you looked up Merlin’s number?” asked Arthur once he’d sat down properly. Merlin raised his eyebrows.

She nodded, looking at her father sheepishly. “I really wanted Merlin to make pancakes for me.”

A warm, big hand glided across her light brown hair, smoothing it out at the back. Not that Arthur was really worried that Lynn might think he’d be angry with her, but he just wanted to make sure she didn’t get upset.

“She’s a fierce eater,” Merlin interrupted the peaceful scene. “It’s her fourth one. Gwaine should fear her.”

Arthur’s eyes shot up. “Fourth?”

The doorbell rang and Lynn abandoned her pancake to run to the door.

“Well, third-and-a-half. I didn’t want to intrude or anything, but she sounded so miserable on the phone,” added Merlin in a half-whisper.

“It’s fine,” said Arthur. “I’m glad you’re here.”

They were sitting opposite each other when Gwen walked in, holding Lynn’s hand. She paused in her step, looking at the scene before her with an increasingly happy face. Arthur was the first to look up and at Gwen.

“Well, hello boys. Hi, Merlin, nice to see you again,” she said cheerfully.

Merlin changed his position, withdrew a little from Arthur, but not in a rejection or because of discomfort. It was more like those moments that should happen at some still far point in the future when this other person was so fully integrated in your life that they were attuned to you. And everything just felt utterly comfortable and cosy, even the fights in a strange way. Yet with Merlin, again, they happened naturally, just like that and before they’d even made anything clear concerning a possible relationship. They’d gone on two dates only. And yet...and yet...

“So, Lynn and I are going to go shopping together. She said she needs some new shoes and you always want to buy her the wrong ones. So I’m going with her,” said Gwen, while Lynn ran back to her room, the pancake completely forgotten.

“And when did this plan come up for the first time?” Arthur leaning his chin in his closed fist, looking at Gwen intently, though he looked like he already knew the answer.

“This morning at around 8:30.”

“And she did not, by any chance, mention the fact that Merlin might be coming to make her pancakes before she was going to go out?” asked Arthur.

“Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t,” said Gwen playfully. “Do you want her back for dinner? Or shall I let her sleep over at my place?”

“I have a night-watch,” replied Merlin before Arthur could even open his mouth and it was this innocent and everyday comment that made Arthur blush. There were implications to be addressed, both on Gwen’s and Merlin’s side that he’d obviously thought about, but hadn’t considered would be coming to the surface this quickly. Merlin still wasn’t pushing – his comment was neutral enough – but Arthur suddenly found himself wanting all that was implied. It was scary and exhilarating.

He turned away from Merlin with a half-smile and addressed Gwen. “Bring her back around 6?”

“Will do.”

Lynn came out of her room, a little bunny rucksack in her hands and a bright yellow raincoat on. She walked up to Merlin and motioned for him to lean down. As he did, she kissed his cheek and thanked him for the pancakes.

“You’re welcome, love.”

“You can have the rest of mine, if you want,” said Lynn earnestly.

“Thank you.”

She kissed Arthur and then she and Gwen noisily disappeared out the front door.

The silence between Merlin and Arthur was filled with the good kind of tingling tension. Merlin was slowly picking away at his own pancake, Arthur was poking his with his fork, and it was a good few minutes before Merlin finally said: “She’s very calculating, your daughter.”

“She likes you,” answered Arthur, causing Merlin to smile.

Merlin coughed, trying to be serious. “Well, as much as she likes me and as much as I like her, she is in the end only the very, very awesome bonus that comes with I’m actually in this for.”

Arthur took a deep breath, which did nothing to settle down his butterflies. He’d never been that good at just plunging into things. He’d done it, several times, he’d just never felt entirely comfortable with it, mainly because there never was anything he could do to protect himself.

_Fuck it._

Arthur got up from his stool at the kitchen counter. Merlin’s eyebrows shot up almost comically before Arthur came too close to properly see them, before he kissed him, hard.

Merlin certainly didn’t complain, instead he opened his legs further to let Arthur step in between them. His hands found Arthur’s neck, jaw, chest and hair and Arthur could have guessed that this man would be as enthusiastic about making-out and sex as he was about almost everything else in his life.

Arthur pulled away, causing Merlin to whimper slightly. “Bedroom?” he asked uncertainly, his voice a careful whisper.

Merlin nodded with a half-smile on his face. “But I’m really tired, so no promises.”

“We could just sleep, I don’t mind.” They were holding hands as they walked through the flat, Arthur leading the way.

“No, hang on, I didn’t say we have to sleep immediately. I like lazy making-out, maybe a hand-job here and there, or a blow-job. You know whatever.” There was a slightly mischievous look on Merlin’s face. Arthur sighed exasperatedly.

“I see how it is. You want me to do all the hard work, while you sit back and relax.”

“Lie back, preferably.”

“Lie back, huh?”

“Yeah.” Merlin sank down onto the bed. “Can you close the door? I don’t sleep well with open doors.”

At Merlin’s words, a surge of grief flooded Arthur. Mithian had never been able to sleep with doors closed. They’d always had it open just a tiny fraction.

“You okay?” asked Merlin, leaning up on his elbows.

“Yeah, sorry. It’s nothing.” He quietly closed the door; glad for the brief seconds he had before facing Merlin again. He needed to learn to suppress these feelings more. Up until now, he’d almost always let his grief play out freely, took his time to think about Mithian, think back to the good memories or the banal memories that didn’t really mean that much, but maybe it was time to change that. At least for some situations.

“You know, if you want me to go, I won’t be offended.” Merlin was now sitting on the edge of the bed, feet firmly on the ground, as if he was ready to move out of the way.

“No, I don’t want you to go. I really don’t.” Merlin looked up at the tall figure standing in front of him and his smile was all that Arthur needed.

They kissed slowly and lazily, tongues teasing, and it wasn’t long before Merlin started quietly moaning.

“Are you going to let me onto the bed as well?” asked Arthur teasingly.

“I probably have to, don’t I? Seeing as it is your bed.”

“Kind of, yeah.”

“Alright then.”

Arthur ended up half on top of Merlin, one hand under his shirt. The kisses were still lazy and slow, hands going in circles across warm skin. To an outsider it wouldn’t seem very passionate, nor like they cared much for it, but for Arthur it was just right. A slow exploration of the possibilities, of the reactions and of the feeling of intimate contact again; and if Merlin’s quiet moans, which seemed so much like the purring of a cat, were anything to go by, he was quite as happy with the situation as Arthur.

At some point Merlin interrupted the kisses and took off his shirt, Arthur following suit, before his hands splayed on the narrow chest again. It was strange, though not in a bad way, to have a man’s chest beneath his fingers. It’d been a while and he wasn’t entirely confident about what he should do with his hands. However, when Merlin’s clipped fingernails scraped along his back, his grip tightened and he deepened the kiss.

He could feel the ribs underneath his fingers, could feel when Merlin’s breath came in sharp intakes that could mean only one thing and he found himself starting to get hard. Merlin grinned at him when he felt the slightly hardened bump against his thigh.

“I’m obviously doing something right,” he said, smirking.

“It’s just the noises you make,” said Arthur in a deep voice, before adding, “Anyone could do that.”

Merlin exposed his neck while laughing and Arthur couldn’t resist.

“Fuck. That right there, that’s how you get me.” Merlin’s hand drew him in further, so that all that he was breathing in was Merlin, Merlin, Merlin.

When his hands reached for Merlin’s crotch, he looked up with surprise though.

“I’ve had a really exhausting watch. I am turned on; it’s just going to take a bit more work to get the actual show started. You know; extensive preparations behind the scene.”

“Oral preparations?” Merlin’s hips jerked up a bit at the words and his pupils blew wide.

“Hm, yeah.” If Merlin’s voice was a little higher than usual, neither commented on it.

Trousers and boxers gone, Arthur didn’t waste any time, taking hold of the other’s cock and in the end it only took a few strokes and well-placed licks with the tongue before it was hard. He couldn’t help being pleased with himself that he hadn’t forgotten how to do it. A suck on the balls elicited the longest groan yet and Merlin’s hips jerked up again.

“Fuck me,” exclaimed Merlin between moans.

“Was that a demand or simply an alternative to ‘jesus bloody fucking christ’?” asked Arthur.

Merlin looked at him with hazy eyes. “You know how hot it is when you swear?”

“I don’t do it very often.”

“I noticed. And it was the alternative thing. Did I get your hopes up?”

“No,” said Arthur honestly. “I don’t think we should, yet. Not that, anyway. I don’t know, I can’t really explain it.”

“I think I get it.” Their eyes locked and just like before, it was so easy, and Arthur leaned up and kissed him again. Their cocks aligned, slipping and sliding against each other as their kisses got more frantic.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

A tiny jerk of the hip and Arthur could intensely feel the strong pulse of orgasm beneath his hand just before he too came with a groan.

“I’m starting to like it when you swear so much,” said Arthur, leaning over to get some tissues.

Merlin hummed contently and just let himself be cleaned up without opening his eyes. “You, on the other hand, barely made a sound at all.” He opened one eye to look at Arthur’s face. There was something sheepish about it. “It kind of fits you.”

“Does it?”

“Yeah.”

Suddenly, Merlin sat up, both eyes wide open. He glanced at both their nakedness, as if only now aware that their clothes were strewn all over the floor.

“You don’t think this was too quick, do you? Maybe we should have waited. I mean, this isn’t even like our third date, technically, because your daughter invited me over, not you, you know.”

Warm lips shut Merlin up. “No, I don’t think so. It’s like...it doesn’t feel like a second or third date. It... I’m so bad with words.” Except, he knew what he wanted to say, he just didn’t want to say it... yet.

“It’s okay, I often have too many words.” Merlin got up properly, but only to peel back the duvet and crawl under it. “Do you mind if I stay? It would be very cruel of you to kick me out to walk five streets to my flat in the state I’m in.”

“The state you’re in?”

“Yes, the state you put me in, in fact.”

Arthur laughed, but then his expression changed into something soft, something Merlin couldn’t quite put anywhere. “No, stay, I want you to.” He crawled under the duvet as well, putting his arm around Merlin. It felt good, it felt really, really good and it wasn’t before long that both of them were asleep.

 

 

Merlin woke up at around 5 o’clock in the afternoon. His hair was messed up and the heat from under the duvet had made him sweat during his sleep. The other side of the bed was empty, though, which wasn’t really surprising, considering Arthur had already had a good night’s sleep. Merlin slipped out of the bed, grabbed his trousers and t-shirt and padded out of the bedroom.

The wooden panel floor felt cold underneath his feet and it was a welcome contrast in temperature. Arthur was sitting at the big desk that was standing against the north wall of the flat, facing away from the bedroom and from the actual part of the living room with the couch and TV. He seemed to be writing a letter, slightly hunched over. There was a steaming mug of what smelled like coffee within reach of his left hand, the one he wasn’t writing with. He seemed so immersed in his work that Merlin didn’t want to bother him, but as he leaned against the doorframe to simply watch, the door moved ever so slightly and squeaked, causing Arthur to turn around.

“Hey,” he said, getting up from the desk. “Did you sleep well?” He walked over to where Merlin was, but as he reached him, he seemed unsure of what to do.

“I did,” said Merlin, smiling up at Arthur, and for a moment, there was awkwardness between them. It wasn’t quite the same feeling that Merlin had had after his one and only one-night-stand, when you just didn’t know how to continue from the night before with a person that was practically a stranger.

It was the unspoken question of ‘had they become too comfortable too quickly and how much worse would the fall be?’ Merlin could see that Arthur was thinking the same; it was there in his face and in the hesitant lean of his upper body. It seemed though, as if he’d decided to drown out that question and plunge into whatever this was, when he leaned closer and kissed Merlin on the mouth.

Merlin smiled shyly.

“Coffee?” asked Arthur, biting his lower lip.

“Yeah,” answered Merlin and the very excited foxtrot going in his stomach had nothing to do with the promise of some delicious coffee.

 

  
**~oOo~**   


 

Morgana and Lancelot were cleaning out the kitchen as Merlin entered. It still looked like a bomb had exploded.

“Jesus, what happened?”

Lancelot wiped the sweat from his brow with his arm. His hands were clad in pink cleaning gloves. “Well, we can only assume that White was called out and they left the, um, I honestly don’t even know what kind of food it is supposed to be. Anyway, they forgot to turn off the hob and the whole thing exploded.”

“They better buy us a freaking cake for cleaning this shit up,” grumbled Morgana, who had obviously won the fight for the blue cleaning gloves.

“Why don’t you wait till they get back?”

“Because we’re hungry and want to make breakfast or dinner. We haven’t decided yet.”

“Brinner,” said Lancelot seriously.

“Anymore gloves left?”

“Oh, we’ve got plenty of the pink ones,” said Morgana with a mischievous grin. As she threw them at Merlin she gave him a knowing look that could only mean that she’d talked to Will who had probably confirmed the not-coming-home-part of Merlin’s day.

“Good day?”

“Yes.”

“Good lay?”

Lancelot straightened up from where he had been bending low to scrape the strange substance off the side of the cupboard. “Did you just say ‘lay’?

“Excellent lay, in fact.”

Morgana very uncharacteristically squeaked and practically jumped Merlin. “I knew it.”

“Nice one, Ems,” said Lancelot, clapping Merlin on the back. It got him an evil stare from Morgana.

“Hey, only I get to call him Ems. It’s my privilege.”

Merlin laughed aloud, all the giddiness that had been growing inside of him for the past hours suddenly coming out.

“No fighting. Let’s get this cleaning party started again. We should put some music on.”

 

 

The watch itself was quiet and Merlin had plenty of time to get lost in thought and think back to the morning. Somewhere deep down he knew that if this didn’t go right, he would fall into a deep black hole because he’d gotten too attached too quickly, but he managed to put that thought aside, just like Arthur had earlier on. They would simply have to make it work. That was the only way.

Just as the watch ended and Merlin signed off the protocol, his phone buzzed.

 

Arthur 7:03: I got a council meeting after school today. Won’t be home before 6. You wanna come over for dinner?

Merlin 7:05: I should be awake by then :-)

Arthur 7:08: It probably will be take-out from somewhere though. Council meetings do nothing for my cooking motivation.

Merlin 7:10: I may have to rethink then.

Arthur 7:11: Take-out, wine and cake.

Merlin 7:14: Chocolate cake?

Arthur 7:16: that can be arranged.

Merlin 7:17: 6 o’clock it is then.

 

“If I didn’t love you as much as I do, I would consider that sugary smile absolutely disgusting. Do your naughty business somewhere else, will you, lover boy?” said Morgana in passing, winking as she walked past the glass front to the conference room.

 

  
**~oOo~**   


 

Over the next two watch cycles, Morgana would repeat those or similar words walking past the conference room where he did his paperwork. All he would do was grin back at her and continue whatever message he’d just been typing out. Him and Arthur met nearly every night, and when they didn’t they talked on the phone for at least half an hour. It was the sort of infatuated and wildly in love with pink heart-shaped glasses that Merlin had mocked in his teenage years and early twenties.

 _“You’re just late, but everyone has that at least once in their life. Enjoy it while it lasts,_ ” said Morgana after he’d mentioned his thoughts to her. Considering he was slightly neglecting her in all this, she was very helpful and supporting of the situation, not to say exhilarated and already planning the wedding. She screamed his entire blocks of flats down when he announced to her after the third watch cycle that Arthur had given him a key to his flat.

_“Just, you know, so you don’t have to wait around outside the door when I’m running a bit late, or something like that.”_

She still made her snide remarks and sometimes bitched about how he never had time for her, but that was Morgana and he would have called the men in the white jackets to have a look at her if she didn’t.

“Have you done it yet? Properly I mean,” she asked one day, about two months after the first date.

“We did it properly on the Sunday after our second date. Sex doesn’t have to involve penetration to be proper, Morgana. But that aside, of course we have, it’s been two months. Who do you think I am? The Archduke of Canterbury?”

“You? No. But maybe he is. You never know.”

Merlin smirked. “Oh trust me, he is not.”

“Woohoo,” called Morgana, punching Merlin on the arm. “Right, now that you’re happy, we have to do something for me. I mean, even Lancelot has got something going on with that Gwen girl.”

Merlin looked around to where Lancelot was working on the fire pump. “I know, I gotta have a word with him. He’s stealing our babysitter.”

“Oh, we can’t have that, less sexy times for you,” laughed Morgana, throwing one of the pink gloves in Lancelot’s direction. It flopped to the ground about five metres away from him and went completely unnoticed. “Like, seriously though, Merlin, how am I the only sexually frustrated person here? Look at me, I really shouldn’t be. Even you said so.”

He nodded consent and grabbed her hand in a comforting gesture. “Maybe you could try that Leon guy again. You liked him, didn’t you? ‘Cause you really shouldn’t single, by law. Although-“

“What ‘although’?”

“-you can be slightly intimidating sometimes, you know that, right?”

Morgana picked up the other pink glove and started hitting Merlin with it. He jumped up laughing and let himself be chased by her. “I’ll give you intimidating.”

A chorus of ‘Morgana’ rose up until Merlin threatened to fire them all.

 

 

The thing was, Merlin could have said his life was absolutely perfect at the moment. And it wasn’t as if things with Arthur weren’t going well; they were going very well, in fact. However, there was always something there, lying beneath the many layers of great sex, underneath the long conversations about books and films and TV or the amazing feeling of a cup of tea pressed into your hands by someone with a great smile at the end of a tough work day. There were frowns and pauses and thoughtful quiet moments. It was Arthur asking him where the scar on his hip was from and Merlin answering with a joke instead of telling the truth. It was the tension in Arthur’s shoulder whenever there was a big car accident mentioned on the news. Sometimes it was his grateful but still apprehensive look when Merlin came to the flat a bit later than usual.

When Merlin invited Arthur and Lynn to the station to introduce them to the team, he did it mostly in the hope that Arthur would then connect the firefighter job with interesting and fun people and a good atmosphere. They arrived at an inopportune moment, as Merlin’s team was just preparing to head out.

“A person trapped in a cellar. Shouldn’t take too long,” said Merlin while putting on his fire suit. “That’s Gaius over there, he’ll entertain you.” Lynn was already shaking Gaius’ hand, but Arthur stayed and watched them leave, not taking his eyes off until they rounded the corner and were gone.

The crew walked into the kitchen just as Arthur and Lynn were being treated to Elena’s roast beef. She nearly dumped Arthur’s piece on the table instead of his plate because Gwaine distracted her.

“You’re on my chair!” said Merlin teasingly, pulling out the one next to Arthur.

“I’m amazed you have enough!”

“Well, wives and husbands tend to pop by a lot. Most of the time, we actually need that many chairs,” said Helen over the noise of everyone sitting down. She was a pretty woman with dark brown hair and a large gap between her two front teeth. Unlike Morgana, it was hard to imagine her as a firefighter.

“Right, my team,” said Merlin loudly and everybody became silent. Arthur was slightly impressed with Merlin’s seemingly effortless authority. “Helen, Helios, Julius, Edwin and Gilli ride in pump B, or Bravo, as we call it. That’s the smaller pump.”

“Smaller, but faster,” interrupted Helios.

“Shush. And those four idiots over there are with me on pump A, or Alpha. The bigger and much nicer pump.”

“What about Will?” asked Arthur.

“He’s a watch hopper. Filling in on sick days or holidays. So he’s sort of a member of every watch, but never constant.”

After lunch, Merlin dragged Arthur away for the tour. Lynn seemed fairly happy helping Elena and Gwaine clean up the mess in the kitchen.

“That’s the conference room. I do most of the paperwork in there. Only Tristan actually has an office.”

“Tristan?” asked Arthur

“Station manager, my boss so to say, though he lets me do what I want, to be honest.”

Arthur walked around the long table. “Do you ever actually have conferences in here?”

“Team meetings for training purposes. Whenever something went wrong somewhere, we tend to get notifications indicating how the situation could have been handled better and how we can learn from what went wrong. They’re not really fun.”

“Neither are my team meetings, well teachers conferences. Despite Gwen’s biscuits and coffee.”

Merlin smiled. “She is really rather good at that. I know why Lance likes her.”

Instead of confirming the ‘Lance is dating the Gwen woman from the school’-rumours, as Gwaine had put it, Arthur stared at the pictures on the wall. There were quite a few. Most were of men in their 60s or 70s even, but one was of a young man. He didn’t look older than 35.

“That’s Joey. He got caught in a backdraft, third degree burns.”

Arthur swallowed heavily before speaking. “Does that happen often?”

“Only if people don’t pay attention. I know you’re not supposed to talk bad about dead people, but fact was, Joey joked around too much. He didn’t check properly for possible backdrafts, like we were taught. That sort of thing happens.” Arthur nodded stiffly. Merlin put a hand on his back and leaned in. “Not that as often as you might think, though,” he whispered.

“Gwaine jokes around a lot. Wouldn’t that be dangerous for him and for you?”

Merlin shook his head, bemused. “What you have to know about Gwaine: He makes jokes all the time, he will ride with you in the pump and give you one joke after the other, trying to make you laugh.” Arthur’s face had the ‘that’s exactly what I mean’-look and he started to say something, but Merlin held up his hand.

“However, once you pull up at the scene, he shuts up, knows exactly what he has to do and does it as professionally as any of us. He is fully aware what can happen if you think everything is a joke. He would also never do anything to hurt Elena. It is set in stone that she is going to die first, just so she doesn’t have to go through the pain of being at his funeral.”

Arthur ignored Merlin’s light tone and still looked at the pictures solemnly. “Did you ever worry about your father when you were a kid?”

“Not really. But you haven’t met him yet,” said Merlin. He grabbed Arthur’s arm and gently pulled him away. “My father is in a league of his own, which is why he’s so bloody bored in Salisbury now. Not enough action for his taste.” Finally, Arthur smiled a bit; nevertheless he remained quiet and thoughtful for the rest of the day and Merlin almost regretted having shown Arthur through the conference room.

All that he had achieved was make the ever-present death in this job even more real to Arthur.

Except for a while they didn’t talk about it and things seemed perfect again. Things seemed to be just like Merlin had always wished them to be. He managed to ignore the nagging tension.

 

Until three months into their relationship when Merlin for once didn’t go to Arthur’s flat after a watch, but to his own.

Will was dancing around the kitchen half-naked, doing something only he would have called cooking. He nervously scratched the back of his head when he saw Merlin standing in the hallway with Kilgharrah licking his freshly cleaned hand.

“You’ve gotten used to being alone, it seems,” said Merlin drily.

Will grinned. “Hm, yeah, slightly. You alright?”

“Not really. I’m gonna go to bed. If Arthur calls, could you tell him I’m ill or something.”

Will dropped the ladle and leaned onto the kitchen counter. “Trouble in paradise?”

Merlin shook his head. “Just doing selective sharing. There are some things that Arthur doesn’t need to know.”

Kilgharrah slipped into Merlin’s room with him before the door fell shut.

 

It was only an hour and two tries via mobile phone later that Arthur called the home number.

“Is he home?”

“Yeah, but he’s ill,” answered Will dutifully.

“Did he really tell you to say that? Did he really think that would work?”

Will shrugged. “Apparently so. He needs a few hours to himself. Some people throw themselves from pub to pub after the rough days. And some people, like Merlin, shut themselves away and suffer quietly.”

Arthur was quiet for a few seconds and Will started to wonder whether he should just say bye and hang up.

“It was that fire on Cheltam Street, wasn’t it?” asked Arthur eventually. “The one from the news.”

“He didn’t say, but I presume yes. He looked like it was a rough one.”

“Well, tell him, if he changes his mind, Lynn and I are going to eat in that vegetarian restaurant he and I went to about three weeks ago. Lynn’s been bugging me about it every day since. Well, yeah, in case he wants to join.”

“I’ll tell him,” answered Will and hung up. Before he had the chance to turn towards Merlin’s room, the door opened by itself.

“What did he say?” Merlin’s hair was standing on end as it always did when he buried himself in his bed to mope. Kilgharrah trotted past him, looking slightly bored.

“He’s in the veggie restaurant you went to, with Lynn. He wants you to join them.”

“How do I look?” Merlin spread his arms. He was wearing old jeans and a washed-out LFB t-shirt.

“Like you weren’t planning on going out again.”

“Right.”

He turned and slammed the door, leaving Kilgharrah outside this time. He scratched at the door and when it didn’t open lay down in front of it.

Five minutes later, Merlin nearly stumbled over him. He scratched the fluffy ears and Kilgharrah took that as a sign that he was allowed to gnaw on Merlin’s feet.

“Kilgharrah, stop it. Okay, apart from the wet, dog-infested socks, how do I look now?”

Will gave him thumbs up. “Like someone who’s trying to get laid. Now piss off and take Kilgharrah with you, will you? He’s lonely.”

Merlin rolled his eyes. “You’re the one who’s supposed to take care of him.”

“But he clearly loves you more,” said Will, pointing at the dog who was still devouring Merlin’s socks, his tail wagging uncontrollably. “He misses you.”

 

 

Lynn tried to suppress her smile as Merlin approached the table. Arthur was still looking at the menu trying to find something to eat and didn’t even notice his daughter’s forced serious expression.

“The menu’s not going to change,” whispered Merlin into Arthur’s ear, making him jump.

“Jesus!” Arthur dropped the menu.

“No matter how long you look at it,” grinned Merlin.

Lynn got up from her seat and hugged Merlin. “The story in English class today had firemen in it. I said I know one.”

“Yes, you do,” answered Merlin, poking her nose slightly.

“You can sit with me.” She crawled back onto the bench and slid towards the wall to make room for Merlin.

“Um, can we get a table outside? I brought Kilgharrah and apparently he’s been missing me, so I don’t want to leave him.”

“Yes,” said Lynn, quickly sliding back out again, taking her jacket, menu and crayons with her.

Arthur chuckled, as she rushed past. He looked up, trying to figure out Merlin. It was a task in itself. One moment it seemed he knew exactly what Merlin was about, what he was thinking, what he was going to do, and then it all switched around and Arthur had no clue. It made things interesting, that was for sure, but it also made him worry more often than not.

Merlin leaned down and kissed him short, but hard. “And hello to you.”

“You okay?”

Merlin smiled. “Yeah. Come on.”

 

 

Kilgharrah was lying at the foot of Lynn’s bed, eyes closed, but ears erect to catch any unusual sound.

“Your dog is very protective, isn’t he?” said Arthur, as he quietly closed the door to Lynn’s room.

Instead of answering, Merlin kissed him. His tongue almost violently forced entry and his hand in Arthur’s hair was gripping tight.

“Bed. Now.” Merlin dragged him roughly by his collar. He immediately pushed Arthur down onto the bed.

“Wha- Merlin!” A nervous laugh rose from Arthur’s throat.

“I need you to fuck me, Arthur!” said Merlin, pupils blown wide. He kicked the door shut with his foot.

Arthur looked at him slightly dumbfounded, but before he had time to properly react he was already half-naked, his trousers around his ankles and Merlin working on his cock. He brought his hands into Merlin’s hair, trying to gently guide him away and up in order to kiss him, but Merlin simply swatted his hands away and twisted his tongue the way Arthur liked it.

Merlin quickly stripped them of their clothing, and the moment they were both naked it became a wrestling match. Merlin was everywhere and pushing; almost shoving at Arthur when he tried to slowly kiss his way down Merlin’s body. “Arthur!”

He hungrily pressed down on Arthur’s finger and before he’d even slid it out again, begged for more. “Come on! More!”

Arthur hesitated, but finally complied. Nevertheless, he tried to soothe the burning by rubbing his palm slowly across the small of Merlin’s back. After a few seconds of that, Merlin grabbed his hand and directed it to his slim and bony hips and forced him to grip them tight. Arthur felt like his hands were being crushed under Merlin’s need for roughness.

“Please Arthur!”

At the sound of Merlin’s plea, Arthur let go off all inhibition and gave in, fucking Merlin with a force he didn’t know he had in him.

 

 

Later, Arthur stroked Merlin’s hair slowly, staring at the ceiling. The room was reeking with the smell of sex and the sheets beneath him clung to his skin in a slightly uncomfortable way. He couldn’t remember ever having sex like that. He’d tried the odd less vanilla thing – handcuffs and blindfolds, sex toys and even SM – but what had just happened was in a completely different league.

“Are you always like that after such a big fire?”

Merlin frowned against Arthur’s chest. “You didn’t like it?”

Arthur’s hand wandered down to Merlin’s shoulder. “Not sure, to be honest. I mean it was good. Obviously.” His eyes shifted momentarily towards the discarded condoms lying on top of his boxer briefs.

“But?”

“You’re kind of scary at the moment.”

Merlin sat up and hugged his knees. The blanket was tangled around his legs and Arthur was almost completely uncovered. Somehow, he felt more vulnerable than Merlin looked.

“I don’t mean... it’s just..”

“It’s only adrenalin, really.”

Arthur skirted closer, sat next to Merlin and in the same position. He pulled the blanket higher up.

“It doesn’t happen very often that I even realise I might be in danger. Maybe four times a year? Maybe less?” Merlin shrugged.

“But today was bad. I saw the pictures.”

“You shouldn’t watch that.” Merlin leaned in closer, bumping his shoulder against Arthur’s, as if trying to comfort him.

“Kind of hard to ignore when half your employees are coming into your office and asking whether your boyfriend is one of the firefighters working on that awful fire on Cheltam Street.”

Merlin looked surprised. “Half your employees?”

“Well, it’s a small school, and half of them are my friends, which is slightly pathetic. You know, that I don’t have any other friends except Gwen, Percy, Leon and a few of my employees.”

This time Merlin shoved Arthur so hard, he nearly tumbled over. “You pay them. You can’t be sure they’re actually your friends.”

“May I remind you that you’re in a similar position? Even if you’re not the one actually paying Morgana and Gwaine and the others, you’re still the one giving them the commands while on watch. Which brings us back to today.”

Merlin sighed and closed in on himself again. There were goose bumps running down his back. Arthur hoped it was from the cooling sweat. “Like I said: adrenaline. You get that feeling you could die any minute, especially when there are actually victims. It can all just go – whoosh. And that just-“

“- freaks you out.”

The arms around the knees tightened. Arthur could see the muscles straining to keep things close and maybe even locked up. Merlin laughed drily. “Well, when you say it like that...”

“We’re so different.”

“Are we?”

Arthur nodded. He got up from the bed and pulled on boxers and a t-shirt. Merlin looked at him with a furrowed brow, a slight panic in his eyes. Arthur bent down and kissed him softly. “I’m just going to the kitchen to make some tea, stupid.”

The padding feet that followed him a few minutes later reminded him of Lynn whenever she came into his room after a nightmare. When he turned to look, Merlin was leaning against the doorframe wrapped in the bed sheets. Arthur couldn’t help but smile at the picture.

“What did you mean, we’re so different?”

Arthur grabbed the kettle and poured the hot water on the teabag. “The way we deal with extreme things. It’s just different. But you’re a firefighter. I don’t really have anything to compare that with.”

Merlin hummed in acknowledgement and came closer. He stood behind Arthur and leaned against his back, wrapping one arm around his waist. “Sorry I jumped you like that.”

“It’s okay. Now I know what to expect. And overall, I actually really liked it.”

“I knew you did. Are you planning on drinking that tea anytime soon?”

Arthur sighed and turned around. “I could always make a new one.”

Later, Merlin wondered whether he’d gone too far.

 

For the most part, Merlin managed to ignore it, push it away into his subconscious that could do whatever it wanted as long as it didn’t bother him.

Every now and then though, he couldn’t. Often, it was Arthur’s face when he entered the station to bring biscuits or dinner, which made Merlin think about that elephant in the room. Arthur’s face was always somewhere between awe and wariness.

Even Gwaine commented on it once. “You know, Merlin, as much as I support you getting laid, I can’t help but notice that your boyfriend isn’t exactly ‘wife of a firefighter’- material.”

“Well, he wouldn’t be a wife anyway, would he?” answered Merlin and didn’t comment on it further, but Gwaine had hit the nail on the head.

Arthur did his best to reconcile himself with his boyfriend’s profession, and Merlin appreciated that, but it did make for a stony path concerning their relationship.

Particularly when Arthur asked about certain aspects of the job.

 

“How often did you come too late?”

“Arthur!”

They’d been sitting together on the couch, watching TV and sipping tea. It was a quiet night in, just the kind Merlin needed after his four days of work. He was still exhausted from the night before and could sleep another eight hours straight away. Especially after the last watch. They’d been called to a car accident on the M25, which was nearly always a nasty business, but tonight in particular. Out of five passengers three had died on the scene and one more two hours later in the hospital. They weren’t so sure the fifth person was going to make it, either. It had been an all-nighter, trying to cut out the victims and clearing the scene. Merlin hated car accidents. It never felt like he was actually helping anyone.

“Sorry, I know, sorry. It just-“

“I shouldn’t have told you about the car accident,” said Merlin, getting up from the couch under the pretence of getting more tea.

He almost didn’t catch Arthur’s ‘no, probably not’. He filled up his cup and slowly walked back into the living room, but he didn’t sit back down.

“11 times,” sighed Merlin.

Merlin saw Arthur looking up in the reflection on the window, alongside with his own reflection. His shoulders were drawn in and his hands were in his pockets. Even he had to admit he looked defeated. He tried to straighten up, just as Arthur asked, “11?”

Merlin turned around and there was anger and frustration in his eyes. “Because Arthur, that’s part of the job, like I told you before. Sometimes, no one seems to think when a pump truck comes crashing down the road with sirens blaring that it might be important. Then sometimes we just get called out too late anyway. And sometimes, with the right material available, the fire spreads like a bitch and even if we are within our given time limit we’re too late. No one likes us being late, least of all us, but that’s how it is. It’s as much part of the job as is a happy family whose baby I just saved from the flames. As are car accidents where the victims are dead before we even get called. If I counted them as coming too late, I’d be at 48 times, actually.” He sighed. “But I don’t count them. Because there was nothing I could have done, anyway. So it’s 11.”

“You remember all of them.” It wasn’t a question. Merlin was again slightly surprised at the simplicity with which Arthur sometimes stated the most painful things. It wasn’t the usual cynicism that came with such tragedies in life as Arthur had had them, but it was something else that had resulted from it. A dry acceptance of things.

“I’m too sentimental. Morgana always holds it against me.” He tried to give a crooked smile to make the situation lighter, but didn’t succeed. “Mind you, she’s just as bad if you ask me.”

“I’m sorry for asking. Sometimes it’s hard to forget-“

“Yes, but you’ve got to or we won’t last. I can’t live with your guilt and doubt, you know, not permanently. I’ve got enough of that as it is,” interrupted Merlin and he knew he was a bit harsh, but it needed to be said – finally.

“It’s a job, okay. Like any other. And what happened to Mithian has nothing to do with me. I’m... I’m not asking you to forget her or what you had with her, that would be pretentious and arrogant of me, but you’ve got to forget the connection my job has with her. Focus on the good stuff. Please.” Merlin hated his voice for going high at the end; he hated how desperate he sounded.

“Yes, I... I will. I’m sorry.”

Merlin sat down next to him again. “Don’t be sorry, I kind of knew it would come up again. And I’m glad it did.”

“Was that our first fight?”

“We didn’t properly shout at each other. I’m not sure that counts.”

“You were angry though, and I was slightly irritated with you when you went into the kitchen to make tea and took so long,” admitted Arthur.

“Okay, I guess that qualifies. Now, can we go back to watching mindless TV shows that will do nothing to improve my IQ?”

“Sure.” Arthur raised his arm to let Merlin snuggle into his shoulder. It was either that, Merlin realised, or Arthur’s head in his lap. Somehow, they had settled down into these two positions when they sat on the couch. Merlin quite liked it.

He looked at Arthur and hoped that things would work out.

 

  
**~oOo~**   


[Part 4](http://leviathans-moon.livejournal.com/161268.html)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thing with putting out fires in schools was: they often led to biscuits and squiggly paintings of happy firemen. The fire in Albion primary school, however, leads Merlin to Arthur and his daughter Lynn; to more biscuits, but also pancakes; to fun and butterflies; and to a whole new world of letting someone in; ready or not.
> 
> Careful, don't burn your fingers!

 

 

 

 

  
**~oOo~**   


 

Gwaine threw his jacket across the room. “Cats. Bloody cats. How many of these did we have to rescue out of trees today? I mean what is it with these bloody animals? How can they be so stupid to climb up a tree and not manage to get down it again?”

Merlin tried to suppress a laugh. Gwaine’s anger was hilarious sometimes. “I think the bloody cats would eventually make it from the trees. The hunger would bring them down. If it weren’t for all the worried citizens who think that cats can never ever climb or fall back down and carry on as if nothing had happened.”

They slipped out of their jackets, which they hadn’t bothered to button up anyway and stepped out of their fire trousers and boots.

“Whose turn is it to cook lunch?” asked Morgana. “Is it mine?”

Gwaine nodded vigorously and Morgana shot him an evil look, but when Merlin nodded as well, she made her way towards the kitchen.

“Oh, it’s really her turn?”

“Yes, you doofus.” Merlin threw a shoe brush at him that he dodged rather skilfully.

“Awesome, I love her food.”

“You love everybody’s food, Gwaine,” said Lancelot matter-of-factly.

“I hate yours, Lance,” yelled Gwaine over his shoulder as he followed Morgana.

“That’s not what you said yesterday.”

“He probably didn’t hear you. Selective hearing, you know,” grinned Merlin.

“2-2, 187 Oakland Street, CiD, I repeat CiD, trapped on third floor.”

“Fuck me, I didn’t even get the chance to peel one bloody potato,” yelled Morgana, the red light shining over her dark hair. She grabbed it in one swift motion and tied it up securely on the back of her head.

“Man, I’m hungry,” groaned Gwaine, as he slid his jacket back on.

“Stop moaning, that’s not going to help,” cried Merlin, jumping onto the pump and grabbing the radio. “Alpha-Echo. 52 here, Oakland East or West?” yelled Merlin into the receiver, because Owain had just switched on the sirens and was pulling out of the station. “They do that every fucking time; never tell us which side of this bloody long bitch of a street. And what is it with fires on Oakland?”

“52, Alpha-Echo. You’ve got navigation systems in your trucks. But just in case you idiots don’t know how to use them: It’s pretty much in the middle, mate.”

“Cheers. Owain, take Stainsden Road. Navigation systems, fuck that; these systems send us down the wrong streets. Our brains are much better than theirs.” Morgana and Gwaine simply nodded, while Lance poked the navigation system with his finger.

 

 

“Paramedics are over there,” said Merlin as Gwaine and Lance came out of the burning building, carrying a coughing young woman. “Gwaine, where’s Morgana?”

Gwaine looked around at the emptiness behind him. The fire was still blazing strongly out of the windows, despite the water going in at a steady stream.

“Shit, I don’t know. I thought she was right behind me. We were all set to push outside.”

Merlin grabbed his walkie talkie. “Morgana? Are you receiving?”

_“Yeah, hi. Um, Ems, I think I might have made a mistake.”_

Merlin took a heavy breath. “You think? Where are you?”

_“Third floor, I’d heard something, or so I thought, and now I’m kind of stuck.”_

“There are balconies to all floors, try and get to one, we’ll get the ladder.”

_“No, Ems, I’m actually really stuck. With my leg.”_

“Third floor, left or right?”

_“Left. Kitchen, towards the back. I’m too far away from the balconies anyway. Would you mind putting out that fire?”_

“We’re on it.” Merlin turned to Gwaine and Lance who were waiting, ready to receive an order. Lance already had the axe in his hands. “You heard it. Go! Get her out.” Merlin tried to keep the panic from clogging up his mind. _She’ll be fine._

_“It’s getting a little too hot for my taste.”_

“Gwaine and Lance are on their way in.”

_“Merlin!”_

“Wha-?”

_“Call them back. CALL THEM BACK NOW!”_

“Mor-“

_“DO IT!”_

“Gwaine, Lance, get back, IMMEDIATELY.”

_“I love you, Ems.”_

“MORGANA?”

Just as Gwaine and Lance ran over the threshold of the building entrance, the third and fourth floor blew up in a huge ball of fire, stone and smoke. All professionalism forgotten, Merlin’s instinct kicked in and he ran towards the building, determined to get inside. Four strong arms wrapped around him from both sides, trying to drag him back.

“LET ME GO! LET ME GO! FUCK YOU, LET ME GO!”

“Merlin,” whispered Lance, his voice cracking. “We need to finish the job.”

All his strength left Merlin in a second and he slumped to the side against Lance’s chest.

“We need to finish the job,” repeated Lance, as if in a trance. He put Merlin upright and squeezed his shoulder before letting go of him. Merlin didn’t register that there was water pouring into the building from several directions now. Four more pumps had arrived. Gwaine and Lance helped a shocked Helen and Gilli with the hose, directing it at the third floor.

 

 

Everything else went by in a blur. Gwaine’s hand on his shoulder was replaced by a sobbing Helen. The group manager came by and said the typical banalities, pretending he had ever really cared about Morgana. Without Merlin and his family connections, the group manager would have fired her a long time ago for her big mouth.

The moment Merlin truly wanted to punch him though was when he said that everything was all right and Merlin didn’t have to worry about any arrangements. The still sobbing Helen hindered him slightly to be able to land a fist on the slimy jaw.

Helen then was replaced by Lancelot’s gently pushing hands, guiding him back to the pump, and Merlin knew they were about to bring Morgana’s body out. He let himself be steered into the oblivion of never knowing just how bad her death had really been, except he couldn’t keep his brain from playing the old instruction videos of firefighters dying in flashovers. They were supposed to be a warning to trainees, now they were a nightmare he couldn’t shake.

In silence, Lancelot drove him home. The plate that fell out of Will’s hand when he heard the news hit Merlin like a thousand slaps. He left both of them standing in the hallway, shocked and sad, and went into his room.

He curled up on the bed and waited for Morgana to call and ask him why he was so miserable. Will opened the door periodically but never said anything. Those three hours before Arthur came storming into his room, was the only time Merlin cried.

Because the phone stayed quiet.

 

 

Then Arthur was there, spooning behind him and holding him close with his arms. He didn’t say anything and Merlin inadvertently thought about how he must have felt when Mithian died, how maybe he figured that words weren’t going to help, because they didn’t help him. And suddenly it was easier to turn around and hug Arthur back properly. It was so much easier to make sure that Arthur was all right, because that was what Merlin did. He made sure everyone else was fine.

Arthur didn’t look as if he was fine.

He had to leave him to go and take care of Lynn and Merlin and Arthur almost had a fight trying to decide whether they should tell her about what happened to Morgana or not. Merlin, irrationally, thought it would be best never to mention it. Arthur, understandably, called him out on the fact that Lynn wasn’t stupid and would most certainly notice that she was gone.

“Hiding the death of someone she cared about is only going to make it worse in the end. What do you think is going to happen? She’ll forget Morgana ever existed? Don’t think she won’t come asking questions, because she will, trust me,” said Arthur, on the verge of shouting.

“I just... I didn’t want her to be hurt again, because someone died, like her mother,” answered Merlin lamely.

“She will cope with it, just like she coped with her mother’s death. You’ve got to give her more credit than that.”

“I distinctly remember you saying that she is still grieving for her mother. So what else am I supposed to think?” shot Merlin back at him.

“Merlin, coping doesn’t mean you stop grieving. She likes thinking about her mother, but she doesn’t curl up in a ball in her room and stop living her life. Especially her, she’d always been a tiny bit better at coping than me.”

Merlin looked away, because curling up in a ball in his room and stop living his life seemed a pretty good option at the moment, but he wasn’t going to admit that to Arthur.

“I...I’ll,” started Arthur, but then he looked at Merlin and saw the pain. Merlin’s arms were tightly wound around his body, his head was turned away, his eyebrows were tightly drawn together and his shoulders were hanging low, as if deflated. Everything about it looked as if he was on the edge of breaking into a thousand little pieces. “Do you want to come and stay over at my place? It’s just, you know, I can’t leave Lynn alone.”

“No, I’ll stay here. I’m fine. I’m fine,” said Merlin.

“No, you’re not.”

“I’ll stay here.”

That was the end of the discussion; Arthur left and Merlin curled up on his bed again.

 

 

Arthur came every day. They didn’t talk much, just lay there and when they talked it was Merlin asking about Lynn and Arthur confirming that she was coping alright with it. She’d cried when he’d first told her and then asked whether Merlin was okay. Merlin didn’t comment nor did Arthur expand on it.

In the evenings, Arthur would kiss his neck or forehead or cheek and leave him on the bed. Once he saw Will who looked just as bad as Merlin with dark shadows under his eyes and Arthur felt bad for not asking him before how he was coping. They talked for a while with hushed voices and then Arthur asked the question that had been bothering him for the last few days.

“Why is he worrying so much about Lynn, my daughter? If we talk at all, that’s the only topic.”

Will sighed. “He’s projecting. He did the same thing when Joey, one from the team, died. He was always more worried about other people and stopped thinking about himself. Back then it got to a point where we literally had to drag him away from a distressed family who had just lost their dog in a fire, because the father thought he was only so affectionate in order to try and feel up the daughter. I mean, he’s a compassionate person anyway, but it’s downright scary when he’s trying to forget how shitty he feels himself.”

“Are you telling me I should watch what he’s doing around Lynn now?” Arthur looked baffled.

“No, but don’t be too surprised when all he seems to care about is her well-being, that’s what I’m telling you.”

For all Arthur could tell, whenever he was with Merlin Lynn’s well-being was to be the only thing he genuinely seemed interested in. Arthur didn’t know whether it was endearing or frustrating.

 

 

Five days after the accident, was the first time Merlin actually saw Lynn again. Arthur brought her along to the funeral. For some reason, seeing her was more painful than Merlin had imagined it to be. Just the thought that this little girl was going to yet another funeral before she was even ten almost hurt more than the fact that this was the funeral of his best friend.

She looked cute in her little flowery dress that she’d picked out herself, saying that Morgana would have liked the colourful flowers more than the boring white ones on the black dress. Arthur looked away with a pained expression, but Merlin couldn’t. He looked right at the colourful display in front of him and tried to smile.

During the service, Merlin felt disgusted mostly. He didn’t think anything about the kind of person Morgana had been could simply be put into some nice words that everyone would cry over. When it was supposed to be his turn, he simply shook his head and refused to get up. He heard a few sobs from the rows behind and had to fight the urge to turn around and roll his eyes at them all. If someone had have asked him why he was so aggressive, he wouldn’t have been able to give them a plausible answer. All he could think was ‘don’t ask me, don’t ask me, don’t fucking ask me anything’.

It was Lynn who took his hand and squeezed it. She rested her head against his arm and asked: “Do you think Morgana would have liked this?” and he didn’t answer, because he felt saying ‘No’ to a girl who was maybe looking for comfort wasn’t right.

Except, he should have said ‘no’, then maybe this little girl would have taken him away.

The priest said his usual words about bravery and honour and forgot to mention that it was her own mistake and wasn’t that just stupid. The honouring gunshots were fired into the air, making Lynn squeak at the noise of it.

The team stood around the grave as the coffin was lowered into the ground, Gwaine and Lancelot each with a hand on Merlin’s shoulders. But one by one they left and in the end it was only Merlin and Arthur who stood a few paces behind him.

Merlin watched as the graveyard caretaker threw one shovel of earth after the other onto the coffin. Arthur didn’t come closer and he was grateful for it. He needed this moment alone.

“I kind of wish you would have died in a car accident, I could stop blaming myself. And yes I know I’m a selfish bastard. And you’re stupid, like really stupid, and I just want you to come walking into my room, say ‘oops’ and play Mario kart with me or start begging me to tell you every little detail of my sex life. I want you to throw bagels at me, I want you to roll your eyes at me, I want you to tell me how stupid I’ve been, I want you to call me in the middle of the night to tell me about the new Doctor Who spoilers, I want you to drag me to crappy nights out with cheesy 80s music and gay guys who think wearing low-cut v-shirts when their chest is hairier than the Queen’s dogs is a good idea, I want you to stand here and tell me things are going to be fine, and I want you to stop Arthur from breaking up with me.”

“I’m not-“ said Arthur from behind, his voice sounding like he’d just been caught cheating.

“You’ve thought about it though. And I get it. You just had to come to this funeral, and it doesn’t even really matter that it’s Morgana’s, it’s just the fact that it’s a funeral of a colleague of mine and that this job I’m doing could mean that one day not too far away, it’s going to be me instead of her. I get it.” Merlin didn’t turn around while he said it and he didn’t need to. He knew that Arthur’s face would show that he was right. The fact that Arthur didn’t say anything confirmed that he was right.

“I’ll... I’ll see you.” He didn’t look back as he walked away and the silence that accompanied him told him that Arthur wasn’t following.

He almost laughed when he got home and managed to ignore all the people stuffing their faces with food, locking himself in his room. He almost laughed because in a strange way that was the least dramatic break-up he’d ever had.

 

 

Arthur and Gwen were silent in the car on the way back home. Gwen was to pick up the flowers and biscuits he and Lynn had baked – Morgana’s favourites – and go to the wake alone. Arthur didn’t want to have Lynn exposed to more sadness than was necessary.

“Gwen?” asked Arthur quietly once they were back at his flat, checking that Lynn was in her room. She didn’t need to know, not yet and not now anyway.

“Hey, are you alright?” Gwen touched his arm, her eyes worried.

“I think we broke up,” said Arthur, staring out of the kitchen window.

“What?”

“Merlin and I..it’s-“

“Oh god, Arthur, that’s like the worst timing ever. You’re a horrible person,” interrupted Gwen, looking at Arthur in disbelief.

“Gwen, when I say ‘I think we broke up’, does that really make you think I did the actual breaking up?” replied Arthur angrily. “Just so you know, he started it.”

“Now, you sound like a pouting child,” said Gwen, the frustration clear in her voice. “Tell me what happened.”

He explained the scene in front of Morgana’s grave. How Merlin hadn’t even looked at him and then simply walked away.

“Did you say anything at all? Did you call after him? Did you _run_ after him?”

Arthur shook his head and Gwen took a deep breath that clearly meant she was trying to suppress her anger.

“You might not see it as I do, but I think this break-up actually is your fault. So, if you want to make it right, you better call him.”

“How is it my fault?” Arthur turned on Gwen defensively, but being the teacher she is, she stood her ground.

“Because you never gave him any indication that you thought otherwise, and particularly with your past it wouldn’t be surprising to a lot of people if you couldn’t deal with this, with Morgana’s death, with what dating Merlin might mean. He knows that and what he said to you today was his conclusion. And at the moment it looks like he was right.” She didn’t look smug or as if she’d won an argument. Gwen would never do that. However, she looked sad as if she didn’t want to be right.

When Arthur didn’t say anything, Gwen asked: “Do you want me to stay? I don’t have to go to the wake.”

He thought about it for a minute and then shook his head. “No, go. Take everything and give my condolences again.” He hated himself for saying that.

“Call him, Arthur. Tonight, tomorrow morning, but call him. Soon!”

She leaned up and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Lynn hugged her quickly before disappearing in her room again and Arthur should have been worried about that, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to. He’d check on her later.

“Call him,” yelled Gwen again from the door. Then she was gone.

 

He didn’t call him.

 

“I don’t get you,” was what Gwen said to him a week later. “I just really don’t get you anymore, Arthur.”

 

  
**~oOo~**   


 

They had to rearrange themselves back at the station. Sometimes they didn’t notice for hours, and Merlin felt guilty about it, but then there was one comment, there was a strange scramble around the dinner table with people awkwardly shuffling around the chairs next to Merlin. Or they had to jump into the car to drive out to an emergency and Merlin would be shouting orders and he would unconsciously give Morgana one. Sometimes they managed to ignore it and Lancelot or Owain would just reconfirm the order and let everything else fall under the table. Then again, someone threw parts of the equipment over his shoulder where Morgana had usually caught it and put it away where it belonged.

They piled things on her spot on the pump, simply because in the moment of action they didn’t think and where there was space, there was space. It was when they got back when either Lance or Gwaine stumbled over the pile while trying to get out of the pump that they remembered. Merlin mostly walked past the open door with a stony silence, not looking at the pile that Gwaine was trying to sort out.

One time, after another one of these moments, Merlin stormed off to the gym and yelled obscenities at the punching bag and everyone was especially friendly with him for the rest of the day.

Most of the times, though, they just fell silent, as if they were leaving open the opportunity for Morgana to say something witty or curse about something that annoyed her; as if she was still there and they just couldn’t hear her properly.

It was more awkward when Will officially joined their team as Morgana’s replacement – and that’s what the group manager had called him: Miss Le Fay’s replacement.

Merlin felt like punching the him again, instead he let it out on Will, not talking to him unless it was clear orders, being harder on him than on the others and ignoring all his suggestions. He knew he was wrong, but he couldn’t help it. He wished somebody unknown to him had replaced Morgana.

Then there was this elephant in the room when it came to the break-up with Arthur. It took the others a while to really figure it out, but after about a week of no mention of Arthur and no sign of him at the station or at home, it finally dawned on them that maybe Arthur wasn’t coming at all anymore. Except, they were guys, as in guys guys, so they didn’t really talk about it.

Gwaine tended to run away these days whenever he noticed he was alone with Merlin. He just wasn’t someone who coped well with talking things out, unless talking things out meant he’d be able to have awesome make-up sex with his wife and that was a quote.

Owain somehow just wasn’t close enough to them and Merlin hadn’t realised before how little he actually knew about Owain’s life.

Will was out of the equation anyway, because Merlin just couldn’t bear it.

Which left Lancelot who honestly tried. However, after two failed attempts at trying to be compassionate and helpful he just sat in silence with Merlin, sometimes bumping their shoulders or ruffling his hair, and sometimes dragging Merlin to his feet and hugging him.

Sometimes, Merlin wished it could truly make him feel better.

Instead, he just went through the motions and briefly put his arms around Lancelot.

 

 

Arthur only felt a small pang of guilt when he looked at the clock on his bedside table and realised he was calling Gwen at two o’clock in the morning.

“Arthur? Do you need me to come over?”

He paused and wondered if that was why he’d called her. “I... I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I’ll be there in 10.” She hung up before he could answer.

They’d been doing this dance for nearly four weeks now. Most of the times he’d simply said ‘yes’ when she’d asked, though every now and then he’d call back mere seconds later and tell her ‘no’ after all.

When he didn’t, she’d come over and they’d talk over a glass of wine or a beer.

Most of the time they talked about Lynn, just like Merlin had done and Arthur was glad that he’d never told Gwen about Merlin’s deflection just after Morgana’s death, or else she’d have called him out on it right from the start. They talked about MIthian, sometimes reminiscing, sometimes trying to work out Arthur’s grief.

“It’s not that anyone’s expecting you to stop thinking about Mithian, you know? You aren’t supposed to forget her, but you are supposed to continue with your life while still remembering her every now and then,” Gwen had said at one point completely out of the blue and Arthur could barely stand it, because it was true, but also so not the point of his problems.

During all of their late-night meetings, they’d only skirted along the edges of what was really going on. Of course, Gwen knew and of course, she made the connection to Mithian and the accident and then to Merlin’s job, then to Lynn and how Arthur wanted to protect her, but so far they hadn’t properly talked about Merlin or Morgana; how it made him feel. Once Gwen was actually there, Arthur tended to change his mind and steered the conversation far, far away from that topic.

Tonight was different. Tonight was different because Arthur had almost run into Merlin during his lunch break. For some reason Arthur had decided to get a coffee from the coffee shop where he’d first met Morgana. For some reason he hadn’t even thought about the possibility of Merlin being there, as if Merlin would now avoid this place because it was tinged with sadness and mere memories.

Except, Merlin didn’t avoid this place. He was standing in the queue waiting to place his order as Arthur approached the shop. It felt strange to see him there, mainly because Arthur was the sort of person who wouldn’t have gone back to his favourite coffee shop if all it did was remind him of a lost loved one.

He’d never gone back to Mithian’s favourite café after her accident. Or to their favourite Italian.

So, tonight was different, because he’d seen Merlin and because he’d seen how he mourned and Arthur wasn’t sure whether he loathed Merlin for it, envied him or loved him even more.

“I only had this rosé left. Not entirely sure how good it is,” said Gwen when Arthur opened the door and instead of the ‘I really don’t care’ she was kind of expecting, she got: “I miss him.”

She nearly dropped the bottle.

For once, she couldn’t help voicing her anger. “Seriously, you realise that now?”

Arthur sighed. “I didn’t just realise it now. I just-“

“You’re an idiot, Arthur,” she said and hugged him. One of Arthur’s neighbours walked past the still open door and gave him a thumbs-up after checking out Gwen. Arthur rolled his eyes and shut the door with his foot.

“So what does that mean?” asked Gwen as she got two glasses out of the cabinet. “Are you going to call him?”

He was leaning against his desk, staring out of the window onto the lit street. “I don’t know.”

Gwen sighed again and Arthur wanted to snap at her that it wasn’t as easy as she thought, but he felt like maybe he’d done that too often lately. “I just can’t sort through this mess. My mind isn’t doing very well on the whole issue.”

Gwen handed him one of the glasses, the rosé wine sparkling with the light from the street-lamp outside the window. “If you care to know my opinion, you need to work out what’s worse for you. You need to evaluate whether you’d rather have as much time with him as you can possibly get and then maybe be heartbroken if something does happen to him, or if you want to be miserable for the rest of your life because you blew the only second chance you got at being happy again for a certain amount of time.”

He looked at her, forehead crinkled. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“You make it sound like a science, Arthur. If you miss him then what does that tell you?”

“Is it weird, when I say I want to be rational about this and not just plunge into whatever my heart fancies?”

Gwen sat on the desk next to him, sipping her wine. “Maybe, a little. But you’ve always been a bit more rational than me.”

 

 

Three days later, it was Lynn who couldn’t sleep. She came tiptoeing into his room, shutting the door quietly. She stood beside his bed, gently rocking his shoulder until he opened his eyes. She had the teddy bear that Merlin had won her at a fun fair in her arms, something that should have tipped Arthur off right away.

“What is it, honey?” he asked, eyes still half-closed.

“I can’t sleep.” She didn’t even wait for him to invite her under the duvet, but simply lifted it up to squeeze her tiny body by his side.

“Why? Nightmare?”

“I’m scared that Merlin’s not fine,” she said quietly, but to Arthur it felt like a heavy punch to the gut.

“What?”

“Is he gone? Like Morgana?” she asked, not looking at her father. She slid even closer still and tugged her teddy bear closer, but still did not look at him. Arthur suddenly realised that this was a little girl bracing herself for bad news.

“No,” he pressed out, but it sounded like a croak. He coughed. “No, not like Morgana. It’s complicated.”

Usually that sentence worked on children. Adults said ‘it’s complicated’ meaning ‘I capn’t be bothered explaining it to you, it’s too much work’, and then the child would pout for a second but inevitably they’d accept that that was just how it was.

Except Arthur didn’t want to accept it, even though Lynn just might.

“Your mother and I, we were lucky. We...” He struggled, trying to find the right and easy words. “We loved each other and it was easy. We lived together, we got you. That’s what people call normal. Do you know what I mean? When you love someone you are together with that person.”

“Yes,” said Lynn with as much conviction as she could muster.

“Well, it doesn’t always work like that. You may like or love someone, but sometimes it just doesn’t... it doesn’t work. There are things that make it difficult.” He sighed.

She shifted and looked up at him. The teddy bear was, disturbingly, looking at him as well, as if he were saying ‘Go on, tell me why you’ve abandoned my giver’. “What things?” asked Lynn.

He swallowed and almost wished he hadn’t started this, not so sure anymore whether it had been a good idea to treat his 8-year-old daughter like an adult. “Being afraid?” he admitted quietly.

“Like me, when I threw all my pens at Mr Percy?”

“Yes, like that.”

Lynn suddenly sat up, the duvet falling away from her tiny body, and looked earnestly at him. “What do I have to do?”

“What?” Arthur was caught between laughing and utter confusion.

“Well, when I’m scared you always help me, so what do I have to do to make it better? I drew a picture of Merlin. Wait here.” With that, she sprang up from the bed and ran out of the room, the teddy bear still tightly in her arms.

For a moment, Arthur was too stunned to move. He slowly put his feet on the ground, because he had to. He needed to feel the solidness of the wood underneath his soles. The pitter-patter of Lynn’s naked feet grew louder, together with the rustling of paper.

Proudly, she presented him with a pencil drawing. There was no colour in it like usual. He looked at the figure. Even though Lynn’s drawing skills were still in the beginning stages, Arthur could make out the uniform and the helmet. He knew it was Merlin because Kilgharrah was right by his side, though with slightly too short legs. Behind them was just a chaos of lines and circles, as if Lynn had tried to draw something but crossed it out again. Except, Arthur knew that she’d tried to draw chaos.

“He looks lonely,” croaked Arthur.

“He’s missing Morgana and us,” said Lynn matter-of-factly. “Because we haven’t seen him for ages.”

Arthur coughed, trying to regain control of his voice and emotions. Trying to regain control of everything. “You like him, don’t you?”

She beamed at him. “Yes! Can we go by the station tomorrow? I wanted to give him a drawing too.”

A tear escaped Arthur’s eyes and he turned his head slightly. Lynn crowded his space and cuddled into his chest, putting her arms around him.

“Why is it so easy for you?” he asked into her hair, but Lynn didn’t answer and Arthur only realised later that he finally might have overstepped the adult-child talk line.

After a few minutes, Arthur pulled back and looked Lynn in the eyes. “He’s working the night watch tomorrow, but we can go on Friday, right after school.” And this time it was a promise that he needed to keep.

Lynn nodded happily. She put the picture on the bedside table and then climbed back into Arthur’s bed. “Daddy? I’ll sleep here tonight. So you’re not alone.” Without waiting for his answer, Lynn settled down to sleep and not for the first time in his life Arthur was very grateful to have this little girl.

 

  
**~oOo~**   


 

Lancelot was standing slightly nervous to the side of the conference room. He was watching Merlin, who was going through a stack of papers. It was night watch and instead of trying to get some sleep like they all should be, they were all jittery. Most of the guys were playing table-tennis, some were watching TV; but Merlin was the only one doing proper work. It was a normal sight now. Merlin was, after all, the kind of person who could drown himself in work to forget things.

It had been decided amongst the team that Lancelot should be the one to try and talk to him. Decided was perhaps exaggerated. Gwaine simply came up to Lancelot and said:

“He hates Will at the moment, he’s never really bonded with Owain, Helen would just burst into tears, Gilli and Julius are kind of scared of Merlin ever since his meltdown three weeks ago. Helios has the sensitivity of a bulldozer, Edwin is generally not the best person to talk to when your best friend died in a fire and your boyfriend dumped you, and I’m a douche, who’s even less sensitive than Helios. So yeah, that, my dear friend, leaves you. Go make him see sense. He has to get Arthur back, because this state he’s in right now? Un-fucking-bearable!”

“Well,” said Lancelot, while he was being pushed in the general direction of Merlin in the conference room. “He did kind of lose his best friend, remember? How would you feel?”

“Yeah, but it’d all be a lot better if he had Arthur to blow him after a hard day’s work,” replied Gwaine.

“Thank you for being so graphic and-“

“Sensitive?”

Lancelot shook his head in despair. “Yes, Gwaine you’re very sensitive. You can let me go, I got the message.”

“Brilliant,” said Gwaine as he dropped his hands back to his side. “Off you pop and make him happy.”

Lancelot glared at him. He knocked on the glass door.

“Come in,” answered Merlin without really looking up.

“Hi.” Lancelot quietly closed the door and remained standing right beside it. “So, have you heard from Arthur lately?”

Merlin’s head shot up and Lancelot shifted uncomfortably. “I mean, it’s just we haven’t seen him in a while and we were just wonder-“

“There’s nothing to wonder about. I’m pretty sure you’ve all figured out we broke up,” said Merlin and underneath the venom in his voice there was a tinge of sadness.

Lancelot stepped closer. “Yeah, it wasn’t really hard to figure out. But why? What happened at Morgana’s funeral?”

“No offense, Lancelot,” said Merlin, focusing back on the papers in front of him. “But, none of your business.”

Lancelot took another step. “I know it’s not, Merlin. But you’re miserable, we can all see it, and whether it’s because of Morgana or Arthur or probably both, at least setting things right with Arthur might be better than nothing. Couldn’t you-?”

“What? Do what?” interrupted Merlin. “Is there something I should know Lancelot? Something I missed? Did he call after me at Morgana’s funeral and I didn’t hear him and then Gwaine punched him in the gut and told him to leave me alone? Did he come by my flat and I wasn’t there and Will told him to shove off and punched him in the gut, then sent Kilgharrah after him who bit off his cock and now he’s too ashamed to call me because we wouldn’t be able to have sex anymore, and who would want to be in a relationship with someone who can’t have sex anymore? ‘Cause unless something like that happened there’s really no point.”

Lancelot hesitated for a few seconds. “Maybe you can try one more ti-“

“No, even before Morgana’s accident it was obvious how uncomfortable he was with me being a firefighter and how afraid he was that he was going to lose another person close to him too soon. I gave him the easy way out. And it’s...it’s done, okay. Can we please stop talking about it? I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Merlin deflated and sank onto his chair, not looking at Lancelot.

After a minute, he heard the glass door close.

“And?” asked Gwaine in a whisper as Lancelot walked over to him.

“No, didn’t work.”

“Did you properly talk to him?”

“Not really actually, but the arguments he gave me were pretty solid and I don’t think he’s going to change his mind unless Arthur does,” said Lancelot, looking resigned.

“What the hell? Is he in love with him or is he not?”

Lancelot laughed drily. “Of course he is. But as romantic as this notion of yours about love is, love unfortunately doesn’t always solve everything.”

“Yes it does. It did for me and Elena,” said Gwaine smugly.

“Except Elena and you are both crazy and irrational people. Arthur is neither and Merlin is only crazy. I mean, he’s a firefighter, of course he’s crazy. We all are,” said Lancelot, earning himself a grin from Gwaine.

“Well, Merlin clearly isn’t crazy enough or else he would hunt Arthur down and put things right. And by the way, your ass-kicking skills suck,” said Gwaine, turning on the spot and walking away.

“Well, I’m not Morgana, am I? If you find out how she always got through to him, you tell me,” yelled Lancelot, realising too late that Merlin might have heard that through the glass front of the conference room. Merlin, however, seemed to be entranced with the papers.

He only stopped pretending to be reading when Lancelot was out of sight.

 

 

All week long Arthur tried to talk himself out of going to the fire station to talk to Merlin, but every time he tried he couldn’t help remembering the things Lynn had said to him.

_“He’s missing Morgana and us.”_

_“I’ll sleep here tonight. So you’re not alone.”_

The drawing was still on his bedside table and the thought that Lynn had left it on purpose to get her father to see sense was strange, to say the least. Mithian had said right from the start that their child was an intelligent one. When they’re still pooping into a nappy and throwing food around the kitchen you tend to brush that thought away, but he’s started to think that Mithian might have been right.

Furthermore, whenever he passed Gwen, Percy or Leon in the corridors or they came into his office, he got the feeling that with everything they did and said they wanted to get a specific point across. Particularly Gwen kept looking at him as if to say ‘don’t you dare’. Maybe he shouldn’t have let his daughter get so close to Gwen. He could just imagine the two of them getting together and forming plans to make him do what they thought was best. Gwen then told the rest of the staff all about it. That’s how it was in Arthur’s head. He wouldn’t be very surprised if that was actually the case. Vivian excluded. No one ever included Vivian. She was too blabby and chances were she would actually tell Arthur whatever was going on.

On Thursday, Gwen directly asked what he was doing Friday after school. She had that knowing look again and Arthur didn’t even think about denying that he was thinking about going to the fire station.

“Good. It’s about time,” she replied to his confession. “I’m going to bake some biscuits, but make sure Lancelot actually gets some of them.”

She kissed his forehead, making him feel like a little child who’d made his mother proud and didn’t quite know how.

On Friday morning, it took him half an hour to pick out the right shirt and suit jacket and jeans and tie. In the end, Lynn sent him back to his room to find a different tie because the black one wasn’t appropriate. And when had she learnt the word appropriate? He could just tell she was channelling Gwen.

He came back out with a dark green tie and she happily took his hand to apparently take him to school, instead of the other way around.

“It’s like you’ve aged 10 years,” he said, without really meaning to say it aloud. Lynn simply nodded.

The day couldn’t go by any slower or Arthur probably would have gone backwards. It felt like he was spending the entire day watching Vivian chew her gum. Gwen came by to inspect his, or more or less Lynn’s, choice of clothes and hand him the biscuits. Again, he felt like a small child, with his mother kissing him goodbye on his first day of school and handing him a small bar of chocolate to get him through the day.

It was difficult to concentrate on anything and he often caught himself just staring into nothingness, twirling a pen in his hand.

Then the last bell rang and Lynn came running into his office. She waited impatiently for him to pack things up and leave.

 

 

The station seemed lonely and quiet when they arrived. Gaius was sweeping the floor in the corner. He looked up surprised when he heard the footsteps on the concrete floor.

“Nice to see you again, Arthur. And you, Lynn.” He smiled and went back to sweeping. “Merlin’s in the conference room, working.”

Lynn immediately started pushing Arthur. “Go, daddy.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Arthur, not moving an inch despite his daughter’s best efforts.

“Gwaine and Lancelot are in the kitchen,” said Gaius helpfully.

Lynn gave Arthur one last shove, which again had no physical effect whatsoever, and skipped off towards the kitchen. He watched her with a heavy heart. She seemed to be expecting things to be all right again and he wished it actually were that easy.

From the position of the top step to the first floor, a person had a good view of the conference room without being too obvious in their watching. Arthur hung back for a few minutes, just taking Merlin in. He seemed older, a lot older. His eyes had dark rings under them and his cheekbones were protruding even more than before which could be attributed to the evident weight loss. Arthur had always been able to easily count Merlin’s ribs and follow the line of his collarbones, but he was sure that even a blind man could now see where the ribs began and ended.

He was deeply immersed in his work, several folders spread out all over the table and a concentrated frown on his forehead.

It fascinated Arthur how different they were. Arthur had just sat lethargically, eaten and eaten for days on end, especially when his in-laws had taken Lynn for a few weeks during the summer holidays. He barely remembered that time. It was like he hadn’t really been conscious. Gwen had had to beat some sense into him right before Lynn returned.

Merlin on the other hand threw himself into work and forgot to eat in the process, it seemed. Arthur felt a pang of guilt at having left Merlin on his own for so long. He drew a deep breath and took the last step.

Merlin immediately looked up. He didn’t avert his eyes as Arthur approached and opened the door.

“Hi.”

“Hey.” Merlin’s eyes found the papers again and he began shuffling them around. He didn’t seem to be following a particular order and Arthur was sure he saw a mission report vanish underneath a bill for a fridge.

“You look good,” said Arthur, but Merlin immediately stared him down with a dead-pan look. “Well, yeah, no, not really. You look like shit actually.”

The eye contact was gone again and Arthur felt his nervous nausea coming back.

“Hey, but you gotta give me credit for trying,” he said, half-jokingly, half hoping. He could have sworn one of the corners of Merlin’s mouth twisted upwards in a semi-smile.

“What are you doing here?” asked Merlin, all signs of possible amusement gone. His shoulders looked heavy and his eyes tired.

Arthur decided to sit down, right across from Merlin. The scraping of the chair made him cringe. The entire thing was harder than he had imagined and he wasn’t sure how to go on.

“I wanted to see how you were and maybe talk to you and...it’s been more than a month.”

Instead of answering, Merlin folded his arms in front of him on the table and put his head on them. Arthur, taken aback, looked around the room for an answer to what had just happened.

“Are you pouting?” he asked carefully.

“No.”

“No, you are. Lynn always does that when she’s pouting. You’re pouting.”

Merlin jerked his head up, looking put-upon. “I’m not pouting. I’m trying to deny your existence and hope that you’re going to go away when I ignore you long enough.”

“Because that’s less childish than pouting.” Arthur couldn’t help his grin.

“Shut up. This,” Merlin waved between them, “is really hard.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.” Arthur’s heart rose up in his chest and got stuck somewhere in his throat.

“I miss you too,” he whispered to his hands. Merlin shook his head and turned to stare out of the window.

“Nothing’s changed, Arthur.”

“Well, Gwen beat some sense into me, with a little help from Lynn. That has changed.” Arthur picked up a paper and played with the edges of it.

“What do you mean?”

Arthur let go of the paper and put his hand flat on the table. “Well, when you... at Mor- I mean...” It would all be so much easier, if he were better with words. “What you said.. you were right. It had crossed my mind, because honestly, it’s fucking terrifying. Your job, it’s just so...” Arthur’s heart was beating violently and he had trouble catching his breath.

“What happened to Mithian – that was almost too much for me. You know, when you marry someone, you kind of expect to either get divorced or be together until you’re old and wrinkly. She was twenty-nine when she died. I needed a long time to get over... no, actually I’m still not over it. Maybe I’ll never be.”

“Whoever tells you that you have to be is stupid. Getting over it would be an insult to her,” said Merlin, his voice cracking. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Sorry, this isn’t about Morgana.”

“It kind of is. I mean, even before her death I wasn’t too keen on your job. I mean, why can’t you be a salesman, teacher or I don’t know secretary. One of the safe jobs.”

“Teacher is a safe job?”

Arthur smiled. “Hey, at my school it is.”

“Sure.” This time Merlin smiled properly. He sobered up all too quickly, though. “So far you haven’t told me anything I didn’t already know.”

“I..I know. I’m- you-“ Arthur let out a sigh. It was always a lot easier when he was talking to kids, telling them what they had done wrong, reprimanding them. It was also easier telling teachers that parents had complained about them. Even when he’d had to fire two teachers it had been so much easier than this. “I made a mistake. Or rather, I realised something too late. I should have gone after you that day. I should have come to your house that day, or the next. Except you were right. Morgana dying in that fire, it freaked me out. All I could think of was: ‘what if it had been Merlin’. I didn’t realise the implications behind that thought. I’ve been so stupid. In all my fear and doubt, my brain rather successfully blocked out the fact that I’d already lost you. And that being so afraid of losing you sort of means that I really, really don’t want to lose you and well, then Gwen was talking to me and Lynn as well and she showed me this picture of you and-“

“Arthur!”

Arthur looked up from his freely gesticulating hands. “What?”

“Shut up and just fucking tell me that you love me.”

“I...which one? Shut up or tell you that I love you?”

Merlin laughed and put his head on the table in fake exasperation. Arthur reached out and touched Merlin’s hair, his hand slowly running through it. “Come back to me. It hurts without you.”

Merlin raised his head, surprise on his face. He caught Arthur’s hand before he had time to pull away again. “I’m not going to change jobs. This is part of me. Running into burning buildings, it’s like an addiction I can’t let go of, especially now.”

Arthur nodded. “I know. I knew that all along. I’m just a coward. That’s the problem. A coward in love with one of the bravest men he knows.”

“Ah, he finally said it.”

“Well, not exactly,” grinned Arthur. “The wording wasn’t a hundred percent right.”

“Who really cares about the wording,” replied Merlin with a shrug. He got up from his chair. A few sheets of paper sailed to the ground but neither man cared. “You know, I admit, I probably wasn’t the most intelligent person that day either, or the sanest person, however you want to see it.”

Merlin was slowly walking around the table, his face somewhere between happy, shy and mischievous. Suddenly it was all so easy again.

“We’re both idiots then.”

“We are,” agreed Merlin, leaning in closer. The odour of his aftershave made Arthur feel light-headed and a warm shiver went down his spine. Long black eyelashes fluttered closed and he could feel the warm breath on his lips.

“The siren’s probably about to go or something like that,” whispered Arthur jokingly, just millimetres from Merlin’s lips away.

“You need to learn to stop saying things like that. You’re practically asking for it. And for fuck’s sake, just bloody kiss me.”

It wasn’t like the first kiss. This felt a lot more like they were sealing something.

And then the siren went off.

“See. I told you.” said Merlin, rolling his eyes. “I’ll see you at home.” Merlin dashed out of the door, and slid down the pipe.

By the time Arthur reached the ground floor, both pumps had left and Gaius had turned off the siren. Lynn was standing by his side, talking away about her day at school.

“Hey love, let’s go home.”

“Is Merlin coming?”

He picked her up and waved to Gaius who looked at him with a knowing smile. “Yeah, he’ll come home after work.”

 

 

 

 

  
**  
Epilogue   
**   


“Are you okay?”

“Yes, Arthur. Stop fussing, I’m fine.” Merlin pushed past him with a brown, heavy-looking box in his hands.

“You got first-degree burns on your hands. I’m not sure you should be carrying any boxes.”

The box made a rather unceremonious landing on the hardwood floor. “First-degree, Arthur. It’s nothing. I’ve had a lot worse. I’m just not so stupid to tell you about it.”

“Like the scars on your hip?”

Merlin simply kissed Arthur on the mouth in response. “Are you going to help me move in now or not? Or else I can just, you know, turn the truck around and drive back to my own flat. Will might be a bit mad at first, but-“

“Shut up.”

Lynn came stumbling through the door, right after Kilgharrah who immediately began to sniff around the flat enthusiastically. “Daddy, can Killy sleep in my room?”

“Um-“

“Don’t call him Killy, he doesn’t like that,” whispered Merlin, leaning down to be on eye level with Lynn.

The German shepherd came over, sat right next to Lynn and barked twice.

“That either means: ‘damn right I don’t like it’ or ‘I don’t mind’,” said Merlin, looking at the dog, unsure.

Lynn smiled at him happily. “He doesn’t mind. Come on, Killy, my room is this way.”

“Um.” Arthur raised his arm to call back his daughter, but let it sink again when he realised there was no point to it. Instead, he turned to Merlin. “You’re hoovering Lynn’s room.”

Merlin looked affronted. “What?”

“It’s your dog.”

“She’s the one calling him Killy. It’s her dog now. She can hoover her own room.”

“She’s nine.”

Merlin kissed him again, as he always did when he wanted to appease Arthur. “It’s about time she learned then.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “She knows how to hoover a floor.”

“So what’s the problem then? If she wants the dog, it’s her responsibility, right?” asked Merlin. And then something dawned on him. “Oh shit, oh fuck, okay, sorry. We didn’t talk about this. I shouldn’t get involved. I’m not her parent. You’re the one raising her. I’ll stay out of the way if you want me to.”

Arthur started laughing. “Idiot.” With a gentle shove he turned Merlin towards the door. “Let’s move you in. I want to eat the chocolate cake we bought to celebrate.”

“Hmm, chocolate cake. I’m liking this place already.”

This time Arthur’s shove was a little less gently. “You better.”

 

  
**  
**  
The End   
**   
**   



	5. Glossary

** Glossary **

A few firefighter terms which are not explained in the fic:  
 **A-,B-,C-,D-Side:** That’s front, left, rear, right side of a building.  
 **Alpha, Alpha-Echo etc.:** code names used during radio communication. Alpha is always the first unit, or the one higher in the hierarchy. Alpha-Echo here is the dispatch control passing the emergency calls on to the firefighters  
 **CiD:** Citizens in Danger  
 **Civilians OD:** Civilians out of Danger  
 **pumps:** In GB the fire engines are called pumps, but the term is not just used for a single truck but also for a unit of two trucks (I tried to separate a bit by saying ‘the (fire) pump’ for one truck and ‘the pumps’ or ‘the pump unit’ for two trucks)  
 **Watch** : During my research I found a few different shift and schedule systems for different fire stations in different areas. I decided to use the colour watch system. Red, Green, White and Blue Watch always on 12-hour shifts. They have two day shifts, followed by two night shifts. So let’s say: Monday, 7am – 7pm, Tuesday, 7am-7pm, 24-hours off until Wednesday 7pm – Thursday 7am and then Thursday 7pm – Friday 7am, and then four whole days off until they start with day shift again. Merlin and his crew are the Green Watch. 

 

I tried to make this as authentic as possible, but I’m not a firefighter and I don’t actually know any firefighters. I mixed a few things up with military lingo and probably created something that every firefighter would laugh at. Apart from that however, I went with the authentic things I could find with my research.


End file.
